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The Tonatiuh project aims to create an open source, cutting-edge, accurate, and easy to use Monte Carlo ray tracer for the optical simulation of solar concentrating systems. It intends to advance the state-of-the-art of the simulation tools available for the design and analysis of solar concentrating systems, and to make those tools freely available to anyone interested in using and improving them. Some of the most relevant design goals of Tonatiuh are:

To develop a robust theoretical foundation that will facilitate the optical simulation of almost any type of solar concentrating systems.
To exhibit a clean and flexible software architecture, that will allow the user to adapt, expand, increase, and modify its functionalities with ease.
To achieve operating system independence at source level, and run on all major platforms with none, or minor, modifications to its source code.
To provide the users with an advanced and easy-of-use Graphic User Interface (GUI).

Additional information on the rationale for this open source project, and on the goals, general characteristics, and current status of Tonatiuh is given in the two following videos. The first video is based on a Pecha Kucha presentation given by Dr. Manuel J. Blanco at the University of Seville in September 2008. Although, the audio track is in Spanish, the video is closed-captioned in Spanih, and subtitled in English. Information on how to use the close-caption/subtitle features of YouTube videos can be found here. The second video is based on an oral presentation of the paper entitled "Preliminary validation of Tonatiuh" given by Dr. Manuel J. Blanco on September 17th, at the 2009 International Energy Agency's SolarPACES Symposium, celebrated in Berlin, Germany.