Multi-fields direct design approach in 3D: calculating a two-surface freeform lens with an entrance pupil for line imaging systems.

Abstract

Including an entrance pupil in optical systems provides clear benefits for balancing the overall performance of freeform and/or rotationally symmetric imaging systems. Current existing direct design methods that are based on perfect imaging of few discrete ray bundles are not well suited for wide field of view systems. In this paper, a three-dimensional multi-fields direct design approach is proposed to balance the full field imaging performance of a two-surface freeform lens. The optical path lengths and image points of numerous fields are calculated during the procedures, wherefore very few initial parameters are needed in advance. Design examples of a barcode scanner lens as well as a line imaging objective are introduced to demonstrate the effectiveness of this method.