In the last couple of years there has been much methodological and computational progress in the modeling of optical properties from first principles. While the calculation of non-linear optical coefficients is still hampered by numerical limitations-demonstrated here for the case of bulk GaAs-linear optical spectra can now be calculated accurately and with true predictive power, even for large and complex surface structures. This allows on one hand for a much better understanding of the origin of specific features such as surface optical anisotropies. We find that in particular microscopic electric fields at the surface induce slight deformations of bulk-like wavefunctions and thus give rise to optical anisotropies even from sub-surface layers. On the other hand, from the comparison of measured and calculated spectra, one can now confidently reach conclusions on the surface geometry. This short review focuses on the simulation of reflectance anisotropy spectroscopy. The clean, hydrogenated and uracil-covered Si(001) surface is used to illustrate the microscopic origin of surface optical anisotropies and the present state-of-the-art in computational modeling of optical spectra. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.