Designing a versatile lens for multiple applications

Traditionally lens design has generally been a trade-off between creating a lens that offers operational convenience against designing a lens that excels at a particular application. However, in recent years, we have created some remarkable lens designs that change the traditional defining factors that characterize zoom lenses.

A key benefit of creating a versatile, high-performance lens usable for multiple applications is that it avoids the need to design several lenses incorporating slightly different optics, which can be very costly.

Recently, Resolve Optics was approached by an organization wanting to create a camera capable of servicing a range of applications. We proposed a lens design that offered Field-Of-View (FOV) flexibility through having multiple set-up positions where slightly different FOV’s could be achieved.

For this customer, Resolve Optics developed a simplified zoom lens that covered all the FOV’s required. Instead of incorporating a complex zoom movement, which the customer did not need, the elements of the zoom design were fixed to achieve the desired focal lengths. Adopting this approach, we were able to create a single optical design, with just different metalwork required to be able to offer versions of the lens optimised to operate at different focal lengths. This approach proved to be very cost effective for the customer. For instance, when the customer required 5-off of three lenses optimised for different focal length lenses. The metalwork was purchased in 5-off quantities because it was different for each FOV. But for the entire common parts including the optical glass elements, 15 sets could be produced in one go providing a considerable saving to the customer.

Our approach is always to maximise the return for the customer, increasingly over the past few years this has been achieved by creating a versatile lens capable of running multiple applications.

To enquire about versatile lens design for your optical product please click here.