Abstract

A finite volume cannot be imaged perfectly unless the angular magnification is unity throughout. If, therefore, a lens must be designed that forms a high quality image of a finite volume, it is prudent first to determine whether the required image quality can be obtained in principle. Mock ray tracing is often preferable to analytic techniques to answer such questions. I will show that the amount of programming involved can be quite modest, mainly because modern computing equipment makes numerical efficiency less important. Results for two cases will be presented. In the first case a high numerical aperture afocal system must form an enlarged image of a spherical volume, with a prescribed minimum Strehl definition. In the second case similar requirements must be met for a spherical object volume copied at nominally one-to-one magnification by a lens with a specified focal length. Where possible the numerical and analytical results will be compared.

© 1992 Optical Society of America