A solution for NURBS modelling in aspheric lens manufacture

Aspheric lenses are widely used as important parts of commercial optical products. Owing to their specific functionality, the aspheric surfaces of the lenses are mostly defined by highly complex functions incompatible with commercial manufacturing systems. This reduces lens data interoperability in downstream lens manufacture processes. It is necessary to represent such surfaces in standard formats such as non-uniform rational B-splines (NURBS) by approximating them without sacrificing their accuracy. This paper presents a solution for improving product data interoperability in aspheric lens manufacture. According to the surface type, the solution employs appropriate methods for approximating NURBS surfaces to aspheric surfaces of each type within a specified accuracy and correspondingly provides a simple way of interfacing lens data with commercial manufacturing systems. Some experimental results demonstrate its usefulness and quality.