Full-aperture wavefront reconstruction from annular subaperture interferometric data by use of Zernike annular polynomials and a matrix method for testing large aspheric surfaces

We propose a more accurate and efficient reconstruction method used in testing large aspheric surfaces with annular subaperture interferometry. By the introduction of the Zernike annular polynomials that are orthogonal over the annular region, the method proposed here eliminates the coupling problem in the earlier reconstruction algorithm based on Zernike circle polynomials. Because of the complexity of recurrence definition of Zernike annular polynomials, a general symbol representation of that in a computing program is established. The program implementation for the method is provided in detail. The performance of the reconstruction algorithm is evaluated in some pertinent cases, such as different random noise levels, different subaperture configurations, and misalignments. (c) 2006 Optical Society of America.