  In the conventional approach to lens imaging, rays are used to map object
points to image points. However, many students have a need to think of the
image as a whole. To answer this need, lens imaging is reinterpreted as a
superposition of sharp images from different viewpoints. These so-called
elemental images are uncovered by covering the lens with a pinhole array. Rays
are introduced to connect elemental images. Lens ray diagrams are constructed
based on bundles of elemental images. The conventional construction method is
included as a special case. The proposed approach proceeds from concrete images
to abstract rays.
