These simulations cover a broad range of interesting and important topics in optics. Examples are interference, diffraction, and polarization. Each simulation is built so that students can explore all the physical parameters of importance to the system being modeled. A theoretical explanation attached to each of the simulations provides a summary of the physics modeled by the program.
Sophisticated and rich models are used in these simulations so that they go well beyond standard simple explanations found in most introductory course materials.
The Java Optics web site also includes videos of the output of real optical experiments for comparison to the simulated results.