Tiny Tim generates simulated Hubble Space Telescope point spread functions (PSFs). It is written in C and distributed as source code and runs on a wide variety of UNIX and VMS systems. Tiny Tim includes mirror zonal errors, time dependent aberrations (for the pre-repair instruments), field dependent obscuration patterns (for WF/PC-1 and WFPC2), and filter passband effects. It can produce a normally sampled or subsampled PSF. Output is a FITS image file.

PROPER simulates the propagation of light through an optical system using Fourier transform algorithms (Fresnel, angular spectrum methods). Available in IDL, Python, and Matlab, it includes routines to create complex apertures, aberrated wavefronts, and deformable mirrors. It is especially useful for the simulation of high contrast imaging telescopes (extrasolar planet imagers like TPF).