Sign convention for R1 and R2 in the lens maker's formula

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chitturp
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Hi!
I'm having some trouble with optics.
When we have convex, planoconvex, concave, planoconcave, and meniscus lenses, I don't understand how to substitute with the sign for R1 and R2. How do I determine whether the radius of a side is negative or positive? A book that I'm using said to take incident light in a particular direction and then measure the radius from the lens itself, but I honestly still don't understand that method at all... Then I found this:

http://www.livephysics.com/tools/optics/focal-length-for-thin-lens.html

but even though it says there that a surface "bulging out" of the lens is taken as R>0, and a surface "depressed into the lens" is R<0, it has the exact opposite shown in a few of the diagrams..

I'm confused and I would really appreciate it if someone could clarify this.
Thank you!
 
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Use sign convention. For example R1 is negative if it lies on ghe left side of the pole.