Copying lens for microfilm photography.
A new lens design for precise copying exemplifies the success of the rms error function as a suitable criterion for the design of high resolution lenses. The design, a 145-mm f/4.0, gives 400-line/mm, high contrast,white-light visual resolution throughout a 30-mm flat image when used at 20:1 conjugates. On high resolution plates, a resolution of 320 lines/mm is obtained. The five-glass design has no vignetting of the marginal beams, presents no manufacturing problems, and gave full resolution when first assembled. The prescriptionwas found by the LASL 1972 Lens Design Program.
LASL lens design procedure: simple, fast, precise, versatile
The Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory general-purpose lens design procedure optimizes specific lens prescriptions to obtain the smallest possible image spots and therefore near-spherical wave fronts of light converging on all images in the field of view. Optical image errors are analyzed in much the same way that they are measured on the optical bench. This lens design method is made possible by using the full capabilities of large electronic computers. First, the performance of the whole lens is sampled with many precisely traced skew rays. Next, lens performance is analyzed with spot diagrams generated by the many rays. Third, lens performance is optimized with a least squares system aimed at reducing all image errors to zero. This statistical approach to lens design uses skew rays and precisely measured ray deviations from ideal image points to achieve greater accuracy than was possible with the classical procedure, which is based on approximate expressions derived from simplified ray traces developed for pencil-and-paper calculations.
U.S. National Patent Planning Commission: Second Report
IN its first report on the American patent system, the National Patent Planning Commission directed attention to certain aspects of the general operation of the patent laws. The present report* deals with the administration of patents that have come to be owned outright by the Government and also with the respective rights of the Government and its employees and contractors in inventions evolved during the employment or contractual relationship.