POPPY (Physical Optics Propagation in Python) is a Python package that simulates physical optical propagation including diffraction. It implements a flexible framework for modeling Fraunhofer and Fresnel diffraction and point spread function formation, particularly in the context of astronomical telescopes.

POPPY was developed as part of a simulation package for the James Webb Space Telescope, but is more broadly applicable to many kinds of imaging simulations. It is not, however, a substitute for high fidelity optical design software such as Zemax or Code V, but rather is intended as a lightweight alternative for cases for which diffractive rather than geometric optics is the topic of interest, and which require portability between platforms or ease of scripting.

For documentation, see https://poppy-optics.readthedocs.io/

Code by Marshall Perrin, Joseph Long, Ewan Douglas, Neil Zimmerman, Anand Sivaramakrishnan, Shannon Osborne, Kyle Douglass, Maciek Grochowicz, Phillip Springer, & Ted Corcovilos, with additional contributions from Remi Soummer, Kyle Van Gorkom, Jonathan Fraine, Christine Slocum, Roman Yurchak, and others on the Astropy team.

POPPY provides the optical modeling framework used in:

• WebbPSF, a PSF simulator for NASA's JWST and WFIRST space telescopes. See https://pypi.python.org/pypi/webbpsf
• gpipsfs, a PSF simulator for the Gemini Planet Imager coronagraph. See https://github.com/geminiplanetimager/gpipsfs