A new paradigm for imaging systems

Today's imaging systems today frequently have digital components, and some image processing is done in the camera. The potential for dramatically increased performance is not realized, however, until the complete imaging system, including the optics and signal processing, is designed as a coherent whole. In such a system, the optics produces an intermediate image, and the final image is produced by signal processing. By designing an integrated optical/digital imaging system, one can use completely different aberration balancing to achieve performance that otherwise would be impossible. Modification of the optics makes it possible to compensate for all focus-related aberrations with signal processing. This frees the optics to compensate optimally for the other aberrations. The result can be high-performance, single-element lenses, or even two-element zoom lenses. Alternatively, if the optics alone corrects for all aberrations adequately, then the depth of field of the imaging system can be dramatically extended. An example is a 10X increase in the depth of field of a microscope.