Efficient assessment of lens manufacturability in optical design

One of the key challenges confronting optical engineers is efficient design form comparison, specifically evaluating costeffective manufacturability. Traditional methods involve aberration balancing and assessing ray bending to determine the most relaxed design form. Such methods can be effective for experts. However, they only indirectly assess cost, are difficult to explain to non-optical engineers, do not directly relate to tolerances, and do not make any connection to the inherent challenges of holding a set of tolerances. The most desirable means of assessing manufacturability, especially during the early design phase should be efficient, simple to use and understand, and provide capability to directly assess error impact and relative cost. There are a number of ways to approach this challenge. Quite notably, this paper shows that a tolerance grade mapping system is particularly useful due to the balance it brings between its ease of use, flexibility, and detailed relation to cost. Two lens design examples are included that illustrate the method and its ease of use.