Open Access
11 November 2017 Review of optical freeform surface representation technique and its application
Jingfei Ye, Lu Chen, Xinhua Li, Qun Yuan, Zhishan Gao
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Abstract
Modern advanced manufacturing and testing technologies allow the application of freeform optical elements. Compared with traditional spherical surfaces, an optical freeform surface has more degrees of freedom in optical design and provides substantially improved imaging performance. In freeform optics, the representation technique of a freeform surface has been a fundamental and key research topic in recent years. Moreover, it has a close relationship with other aspects of the design, manufacturing, testing, and application of optical freeform surfaces. Improvements in freeform surface representation techniques will make a significant contribution to the further development of freeform optics. We present a detailed review of the different types of optical freeform surface representation techniques and their applications and discuss their properties and differences. Additionally, we analyze the future trends of optical freeform surface representation techniques.
© 2017 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE) 0091-3286/2017/$25.00 © 2017 SPIE
Jingfei Ye, Lu Chen, Xinhua Li, Qun Yuan, and Zhishan Gao "Review of optical freeform surface representation technique and its application," Optical Engineering 56(11), 110901 (11 November 2017). https://doi.org/10.1117/1.OE.56.11.110901
Received: 11 July 2017; Accepted: 26 October 2017; Published: 11 November 2017
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CITATIONS
Cited by 58 scholarly publications and 4 patents.
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KEYWORDS
Freeform optics

Optics manufacturing

Zernike polynomials

Imaging systems

Optical components

Optical engineering

Optical design

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