1. A system for computing optical network characteristics, the system comprising: a plurality of network elements arranged into two or more domains, each of the two or more domains comprising one or more network elements sharing a common operational characteristic protocol; the plurality of network elements in optical communication along an optical path, the optical path including a first network element associated with a first domain, the first network element at an origin of the optical path, and a final network element associated with a second domain, the final network element at a terminus of the optical path; two or more optical computation engines, each of the two or more optical computation engine associated with one of the two or more domains; the two or more optical computation engines configured to perform calculations related to the optical performance of the network elements associated with the same domain as the optical computation engine; and a centralized path computation engine configured to interface with the two or more optical computation engines, to receive from each of the optical computation engines one or more of the calculations related to the optical performance of the network elements associated with the same domain as each optical computation engine, and to compute an optical feasibility of a proposed path between the first network element and the final network element based on the received calculations.