Optical techniques for distance measurement offer plenty of uses and applications. These techniques are able to measure the distance between two objects without touching them, making them perfect for a variety of situations. Optical techniques are usually the best...
The Scheimpflug principle states that for a plane (such as a camera lens) to remain in focus on an object, the plane of focus must be parallel to the image plane, and the plane of the lens must be angled so that it intersects the plane of focus at a specific point....
A dispersive prism is an optical element used to break up light into its different wavelength components - a phenomenon discovered by Sir Isaac Newton. By doing this, the prism separates light of varying wavelengths, with longer wavelengths (red) deflecting at a...
In this post we will review textbooks, online tutorials, discussion forums like the ELE Optics Community and software training programs like Zemax training and other great sources to help engineers learn lens design from basic concepts to advanced techniques.
Plano convex lenses are lenses with a positive focal length and while they are simple compared to many optical systems, but there are fine details that a lens designer needs to pay attention to. This post will review 3 key rules for designing a plano convex lens
In a previous article we talked about Aviation Light Optics. and discussed a runway light system called Precision Approach Path Indicator (PAPI). Now we would like to go more in detail into PAPI design and describe their design requirements. The PAPI system...
Optical collimators also called non-imaging concentrators are optical components that can collect and project light from a source. Common examples include solar collectors that concentrate the sun's light and project it to heat a surface or direct it to solar panels....
Retinoscopes are a very common optical instrument used by optometrists to examine a patient’s eye and evaluate the need of corrective lenses. They use a very interesting physical principle. Let’s first describe the optical instrument. The retinoscope is a hand held...
In this article, we will continue our description of different optical instruments used by optometrists. Last time we talked about Ophthalmoscopes, today we will talk about another very common optical instrument called the Keratometer. The keratometer was developed...
Introduction In previous entries, we have talked about the design of scanning microscopes, infinity corrected microscopes, confocal microscope design, and Koehler illumination systems-a common illumination system in microscopes. The most essential microscope element...
Endoscopes are medical devices designed to collect the smallest images from inside the human body. Endoscopes can be divided into two categories: rigid endoscopes, in which relay lenses are stacked together generally creating a high-quality image, and flexible...
When I was a young undergrad engineering student, I always found optics to be a very confusing subject. It was not only the equations, but what it looked like hundreds of different definitions involved in even the simplest of optical systems. Some concepts, like...
Previous posts have reviewed different techniques for beam homogenization as well as the difference between spot size and beam angle. This post will review a method for beam shaping using Powell Lenses. Powell lenses are lenses that create a straight laser line by...
Among the many lens design configurations, one of the most common lens optical layouts is the Tessar Lens. This layout was created by Paul Rudolph in 1902 for photographic lenses. In the golden age of film photography, the...
There are different ways to calculate the quality of a laser beam. In general, we want our laser beam to be as close to a theoretical Gaussian Beam as possible. The question then is how do we measure the profile of our beam and how do we compare it against our ideal...
Confocal microscopy is a very popular technique for high-quality images. It is useful when working with tissue or bio-samples due to the relatively simple sample preparation. While in a traditional microscope we have a wide field where most of the elements at the...
Projection systems are one of the most common consumer optical devices (probably second to photographic systems). They allow us to view images on a screen (usually) by magnifying and projecting them at distances from a few centimeters to several meters away...
Anyone who has peaked through a hotel room peephole has used a fish eye lens. Usually, the fish eye lens has a very short focal length (less than 15mm for a 35mm-size image sensor), but a large field of view (FOV). The latter can be as large as...
Parabolic mirrors are optical systems that are used to collect or distribute energy. They have a wide range of applications from solar collectors for water heating systems to microscopes and telescopes, and everyday flashlights. The most common way ...
Traditional Microscope systemTraditional microscope systems consist of two main optical elements: a microscope objective and an eyepiece. The microscope objective is placed close to the sample that we want analyzed. The distance between the objective lens and...
Screen Scratch Detection System
Phase Shift Method for distance measurement
Scheimpflug principle