Evaluation of Geometrical Modulation Transfer Function in Optical Lens System

Abstract

This paper presents ray tracing algorithms to evaluate the geometrical modulation transfer function (GMTF) of optical lens system. There are two kinds of ray tracings methods that can be applied to help simulate the point spread function (PSF) in the image plane, for example, paraxial optics and real ray tracings. The paraxial optics ray tracing is used to calculate the first-order properties such as the effective focal length (EFL) and the entrance pupil position through less cost of computation. However, the PSF could have a large tolerance by only using paraxial optics ray tracing for simulation. Some formulas for real ray tracing are applied in the sagittal and tangential line spread function (LSF). The algorithms are developed to demonstrate the simulation of LSF. Finally, the GMTF is evaluated after the fast Fourier transform (FFT) of the LSF.