Method and apparatus for measuring the refractive properties of a spherocylindrical optical system

摘要

Apparatus and method is disclosed for measuring refractive properties such as spherical power, cylindrical power, cylindrical axis, etc., which are potentially present in a sphero-cylindrical optical system. Relative movement is effected between an incident light beam and the optical system under test so as to cause the incident beam to effectively move about a pre-defined first locus in the plane of the optical system thereby producing a refracted light beam which moves correspondingly about a second locus in a subsequent plane parallel to the plane of the optical system. This second locus has relative maximum and minimum dimensions which are representative of refractive properties of the sphero-cylindrical optical system under test and a position- sensitive photoelectric detector surface is disposed in the path of the refracted light beam for producing an electrical output representative of the instantaneous relative position at which the refracted light beam strikes the position-sensitive photoelectric surface with electrical processing circuits being connected to receive this electrical output and to provide an output indication representative of at least one refractive property of the optical system under test.