Parabolic mirror
Reflects from segmented parabolic geometry toward the configured focus.
Open in the canvas →In the real world
A parabola has an exact geometric property a sphere only approximates: every ray traveling parallel to its axis, at any distance from that axis, reflects through a single focus. There is no spherical aberration to correct for, which is why fast telescope primaries, off-axis paraboloid (OAP) mirrors in ultrafast laser labs, and satellite dishes are all parabolic rather than spherical. In this 2D side view, the mirror profile is the parabola with vertex at the origin and focus a distance f behind it:
In OpticalSetup
Unlike the concave and convex mirrors, which reflect off a single flat line and add focusing as a separate paraxial correction, the parabolic mirror is traced as its real geometric curve — split into a chain of short flat segments, each obeying the exact vector law of reflection. A collimated beam genuinely converges to the focus through real reflection geometry at every ray height, with no paraxial approximation involved.
This is closer to first-principles optics than most elements in the library, but it's still a 2D on-axis cross-section — a real OAP is typically an off-axis section of a 3D paraboloid, which this side view can't represent. The curve is also faceted into a finite number of straight segments rather than perfectly smooth; the segment count scales with size and focal length to keep faceting error negligible for realistic apertures, but an extremely fast mirror sampled too coarsely could show it.