LIGHT AND THE RETINAL IMAGE: KEY POINTS

Light travels in (more or less) straight lines: the pinhole camera’s inverted
image
Enlarging the pinhole leads to BLUR
How a lens prevents blur: refraction reunites light rays by bending them
Point-to-point projection from object to inverted image
Refraction: which way is light bent? Slowing in glass: lifeguard analogy.
The eye: retina, lens and cornea; fovea, periphery and blind spot
Focus errors; distant vision and near vision
Myopia, hypermetropria, emmetropia, accommodation; emmetropization
Visual angle and image size: (in radians) = size/distance
(in degrees) = (180/ ) * size/distance
(minutes of arc) = 60 * (180/ ) * size/distance
Point spread function: width is 1 minute in visual angle, or 5 microns (.005 mm)
Sources of light spread making the image imperfect:
focus error; chromatic aberration; other aberrations; diffraction
Direct observation of the image: Helmholtz’s ophthalmoscope
Quality of the image: spread is about 5 microns (1 minute of arc)
Visual resolution limit: about 1 minute of arc or 30 cpd (for 20/20 vision)
Can vision be perfected?? William’s magic mirror and laser surgery
Aliasing through sampling by the photoreceptor mosaic: Nyquist limit (60cpd)
A Review of Optics

Austin Roorda, Ph.D.

University of Houston
College of Optometry
(Most of) these slides were prepared by Austin Roorda,
(UC Berkeley Optometry School) and used by
permission.
 Geometrical Optics

Relationships between
pupil size, refractive
error and blur
Optics of the eye: Depth of Focus

2 mm 4 mm 6 mm
 Optics of the eye: Depth of Focus

Focused
behind
retina

In focus

Focused
in front
of retina

2 mm 4 mm 6 mm
7 mm pupil

Bigger blur
circle

Courtesy of RA Applegate
2 mm pupil

Smaller blur
circle

Courtesy of RA Applegate
 Demonstration
Role of Pupil Size and Defocus on Retinal Blur

Draw a cross like this one on a page, hold it so close that is it completely out of focus, then squint.
You should see the horizontal line become clear. The line becomes clear because you have made
you have used your eyelids to make your effective pupil size smaller, thereby reducing the blur due
to defocus on the retina image. Only the horizontal line appears clear because you have only
reduced the blur in the horizontal direction.
Physical Optics

The Wavefront
 What is the Wavefront?
parallel beam
= converging beam
plane wavefront =
spherical wavefront
 What is the Wavefront?
parallel beam ideal wavefront
=
plane wavefront
defocused wavefront
 What is the Wavefront?
parallel beam ideal wavefront
=
plane wavefront
aberrated beam
=
irregular wavefront
 What is the Wavefront?
diverging beam
= aberrated beam
spherical wavefront =
irregular wavefront

ideal wavefront
The Wave Aberration
 What is the Wave Aberration?
diverging beam
=
spherical wavefront wave aberration
Wave Aberration of a Surface
Wavefront Aberration

mm (superior-inferior)
1

-1

-2

-3

-3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3
mm (right-left)
Diffraction
 Diffraction

“Any deviation of light rays from a

rectilinear path which cannot be
interpreted as reflection or refraction”

Sommerfeld, ~ 1894
 Diffraction and Interference
• diffraction causes light to bend
perpendicular to the direction of the
diffracting edge
• interference due to the size of the aperture
causes the diffracted light to have peaks
and valleys
rectangular aperture

square aperture
circular aperture

Airy Disc
The Point Spread Function
The Point Spread Function, or PSF, is
the image that an optical system
forms of a point source.

The point source is the most

fundamental object, and forms the
basis for any complex object.

The PSF is analogous to the Impulse

Response Function in electronics.
 The Point Spread Function

The PSF for a perfect optical system is

the Airy disc, which is the Fraunhofer
diffraction pattern for a circular pupil.

Airy Disc
 Airy Disk

1.22  

a

 As the pupil size gets larger, the Airy
disc gets smaller.

1.22  
separatrion between Airy disk peak and 1st min


2.5
a
(minutes of arc 500 nm light)

  angle subtended at the nodal point

2
  wavelength of the light
1.5
a  pupil diameter
1

0.5

0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
pupil diameter (mm)
Point Spread Function vs. Pupil Size
1 mm 2 mm 3 mm 4 mm

5 mm 6 mm 7 mm
 Small Pupil
Little spreading due to defocus or aberrations
So diffraction is limiting
 Larger pupil:
Less diffraction (not shown)
But more blur and more aberrations
Aberrations
 Size
Perfect Eye (Diffraction
1 mm
Limited)
2 mm 3 mm 4 mm

5 mm 6 mm 7 mm
Point Spread Function vs. Pupil
Size
Typical
1 mm Eye
2 mm with 3
aberrations
mm 4 mm

pupil images

followed by

psfs for changing pupil size

5 mm 6 mm 7 mm
 Demonstration
Observe Your Own Point Spread Function
Resolution
Unresolved
point sources

Rayleigh
resolution
limit

Resolved
Keck telescope:
(10 m reflector)
About 4500 times
better than the eye!
“Pupil” is 10M:
almost no diffraction

Wainscott
• Compound eye:
• Each facet must
be large to fight
diffraction
• Many facets
(pixels) needed to
capture details
Convolution with the PSF
 Convolution

PSF ( x, y )  O( x, y )  I ( x, y )
Simulated Images
20/20 letters

20/40 letters
 MTF
Modulation Transfer
Function
 low medium high
object:
100%
contrast

image

1
contrast

0
spatial frequency
• The modulation transfer function (MTF) indicates the ability of an
optical system to reproduce (transfer) various levels of detail (spatial
frequencies) from the object to the image.
• Its units are the ratio of image contrast over the object contrast as a
function of spatial frequency.
• It is the optical contribution to the contrast sensitivity function (CSF).
 MTF: Cutoff Frequency
cut-off frequency
1 mm a
1 2 mm f cutoff 
4 mm 57.3  
modulation transfer

6 mm Rule of thumb: cutoff

8 mm frequency increases by
~30 c/d for each mm
0.5 increase in pupil size

0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300
spatial frequency (c/deg)
Effect of Defocus on the MTF

450 nm

650 nm

Charman and Jennings, 1976

Relationships Between
Wave Aberration,
PSF and MTF
Retinal Sampling
Sampling by Foveal Cones
Projected Image Sampled Image

20/20 letter 5 arc minutes

Sampling by Foveal Cones
Projected Image Sampled Image

20/5 letter 5 arc minutes

Nyquist Sampling Theorem
 Photoreceptor Sampling >> Spatial Frequency
1

0
nearly 100% transmitted
 Photoreceptor Sampling = 2 x Spatial Frequency
1

0
nearly 100% transmitted
 Photoreceptor Sampling = Spatial Frequency
1

0
nothing transmitted
Nyquist theorem:
The maximum spatial frequency that can
be detected is equal to ½ of the sampling
frequency.

foveal cone spacing ~ 120 samples/deg

maximum spatial frequency:

60 cycles/deg (20/10 or 6/3 acuity)