Abstract

The tolerancing of lens systems has become more complex as system requirements tighten. The tolerancing of just the center thicknesses, surface radii, and surface irregularity are no longer sufficient for optical elements. This paper focuses on a new method to tolerance optical surfaces. There have been many papers written about different methods to tolerance optical surfaces which look to limit the artifacts left by different fabrication processes. The method proposed in this paper focuses on tolerancing to meet system performance, not the fight against the surface fingerprint of a particular fabrication process.

© 2014 Optical Society of America