Abstract

Traditionally, the International Optical Design Conference has included a lens design problem for members of the design community to consider. The present problem was not only to be enjoyable and instructive, but is also of practical value. Designing a lens with a low volume is a design goal with a wide range of applications. From the more general point of view of optical system design, this problem is interesting because of the fact, that the merit function is a non-optical quantity. The normal optical quantities (aberrations, etc.) appeare only as constraints which must be fulfilled, otherwise the solution is excluded from competition. And this in general is nowadays a widespread procedure in modern lens design: Nonoptical requirements dominate the specifications and the fact that image quality requirements must be fulfilled is self-evident. But this self-evidence often is a problem to the designer, and this fact is also shown by the present problem.

© 1994 Optical Society of America