Abstract

Oblique imaging does not receive much attention in textbooks yet it is an interesting topic which can have practical applications as in many instances the objects that one wishes to image are not necessarily limited to planes perpendicular to the optical axis. The lack of popularity of oblique imaging is, of course, due to the severe alteration that it induces in the appearance of the object which is being imaged since it is accompanied in most instances by keystone distortion and anamorphosis in large amounts. Another reason might be that the paraxial relationships between object and image are not as simple as in the conventional perpendicular case, in particular the rendition of a 3-D structure is not without surprises. Yet one advantage of oblique imaging is that the height information is not lost as a result of the imaging process as long as the structure in question is contained within the depth-of-focus range.

© 1989 Optical Society of America