Research at the Precision Engineering Center
Freeform Optical surfaces are defined as any non-rotationally symmetric surface or a symmetric surface that is rotated about any axis that is not its axis of symmetry. These surfaces offer added degrees of freedom that can lead to lower wavefront error and smaller system size as compared to rotationally symmetric surfaces. Unfortunately, freeform optical surfaces are viewed by many designers as more difficult and expensive to manufacture than rotationally symmetric optical surfaces. For most freeform surfaces this is true, but a designer has little or no feedback to quantify the degree of difficulty for manufacturing a surface. A joint project by Optical Research Associates (ORA) and the Precision Engineering Consortium to integrate metrics related to the cost and difficulty of manufacturing a surface into the merit function that is used during the design of an optical system using CODE V® has been completed. By incorporating such information into the merit function, it is possible to balance optical performance and manufacturability early in the design process. Additional s oftware tools have been developed to enhance the infrastructure of the PEC with respect to fabrication and metrology of freeform optics as well as the development of design and assembly tolerances.
The following faculty, students, and PEC affiliates are involved in this project:
| Faculty | Students | Affiliates |
| Thomas A. Dow Alex Sohn Ken Garrard |
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