APRIL 9--Wells Research and Development (Lincoln, MA;www.wellsresearch.com), a developer of instrumentation for optical measurement and alignment tasks, has released OpticStudio, a new lens-testing system that qualifies the performance of optical lenses. OpticStudio can quickly assess the performance of a range of lenses, from molded plastic to diffraction-limited objectives, and delivers fast feedback on lens quality. For R&D, OpticStudio tests whether off-the-shelf lenses meet the requirements of new applications. For production engineering, the system diagnoses imaging problems in both commercial and custom lenses from quick go/no-go tests on the production line to detailed performance measurements offline.
Featuring PixelScope software, OpticStudio is a compact, desktop system that includes all the components found on a classical optical bench. The collimator section creates a diffraction-limited wavefront for the lens under test by including a high-intensity light source, interchangeable narrow-band filters, and various test reticles. The lens to be tested is held in a universal 3-jaw chuck, mounted on a nodal slide to allow off-axis measurements. An image-analysis microscope includes a FireWire video camera with a Sony CCD image sensor. The camera requires a FireWire (IEEE 1394) port or PCI card and provides a 640 x 480-pixel resolution.
PixelScope image-analysis software provides precise numerical measurements in real time via an array of functions. The system allows evaluation of lens parameters, including focal length, magnification, spherical aberration, coma, astigmatism, field curvature, distortion, lateral color, and axial color. Advanced image evaluation functions include Contrast Transfer Function, Modulation Transfer Function, as well as line-spread and point-spread plots. PixelScope software can be extended to work in conjunction with other test software applications, such as MatLab, National Instruments¹ LabVIEW, and Microsoft's Visual Basic. It runs on a Windows 2000/XP system.
Components can be reconfigured for testing at infinite or finite conjugates. Afocal testing of telescopes or beam expanders is also possible. OpticStudio includes a 200-mm collimator, high-intensity light source, self-centering lens mount, video microscope with a 10x objective, and 1-m optical rail.
