Comparison of three methods for end-to-end optimization of hybrid optical/digital imaging systems with professional optical design software

We compare different methods to optimize end-to-end a hybrid optical/digital system for best and most uniform performance over the field-of-view with the Synopsys® CodeV® lens design software. We have extended the native optimization capability of this software by implementing different methods that leverage the deconvolution during the optimization process of the hybrid optical system as a whole, including simultaneously their optical and digital image processing parts. We show that the joint optimization of the lens and the processing through a true restored-image quality criterion significantly enhances the final post-processed image quality, and allows to fine-tune the residual balancing between on-axis and peripheral fields with simple weighting coefficients.