Optics and the Eye - VISN2131

Note: This course is not offered in 2006. It will be offered from 2007.

Objectives: An understanding of the optical performance of the eye, measurement and correction of refractive errors, introduction to spectacle lenses and contact lenses, the measurement of light and colour.

Brief Curriculum: Ametropia and its correction: accommodation, retinal image analysis, astigmatism, measurement of visual performance, the optics of subjective refraction, near correction, limits to visual resolution, higher order aberrations, contrast sensitivity, modulation transfer function, ocular correction of ametropia (contact lenses and implant lenses), introduction to spectacle lenses and its subsidiary effects, entopic phenomena. Measurement of Light and Colour: sources of optical radiation, sunlight and daylight, detectors, principles of photometry, principles of colour measurement and specification, uniform colour scales, colour rendering, metamerism, colour atlases and order systems.