1. A method for performing synthetic aperture optics (SAO) on a target including one or more objects, the method comprising the steps of: illuminating the target with a predetermined number (N) of selective excitation patterns, wherein the set of N selective excitation patterns results from a design process using a minimum distance (Δx) between objects to be resolved by SAO and a width of a detected area (w) captured by a pixel of a system for said optical imaging, wherein the number (N) of selective excitation patterns is substantially determined from: N=floor(L/2) wherein L is the number of k-space sample points in the k-space, and floor ( ) rounds the number to the nearest but smaller integer; and L=round((PFOV/Δx) 2 ) wherein round ( ) rounds the number to the nearest integer, and PFOV is the extent in the reciprocal space of the k-space to be reconstructed from the samples; optically imaging the illuminated target at a resolution insufficient to resolve the objects; and processing optical images of the illuminated target using information on the selective excitation patterns to obtain a final image of the illuminated target at a resolution sufficient to resolve the objects.