Fast Focus Mechanism with Constant Magnification Using a Varifocal Lens and Its Application to Three-Dimensional Imaging

A differential pair of convergent and divergent lenses with adjustable lens spacing ("differential lens") was devised as a varifocal lens and was successfully integrated into an object-space telecentric lens to build a focus mechanism with constant magnification. This integration was done by placing the front principal point of the varifocal lens at the rear focal point of the telecentric lens within a practical tolerance of positioning. Although the constant-magnification focus mechanism is a parallel projection system, a system for perfect perspective projection imaging without shifting the projection center during focusing could be built simply by properly setting this focus mechanism between an image-taking lens with image-space telecentricity and an image sensor. The focus resolution experimentally obtained was 0.92 mu m (sigma) for the parallel projection system with a depth range of 1.0 mm and this was 0.25 mm (sigma) for the perspective projection system with a range from 120 to 350 mm within a desktop space. A marginal image resolution of 100 lp/mm was obtained with optical distortion of less than 0.2% in the parallel projection system. The differential lens could work up to 55 Hz for a sinusoidal change in lens spacing with a peak-to-valley amplitude of 425 mu m when a tiny divergent lens that was plano-concave was translated by a piezoelectric positioner. Therefore, images that were entirely in focus were generated at a frame rate of 30 Hz for an object moving at a speed of around 150 mm/s in depth within the desk top space. Thus, three-dimensional (3-D) imaging that provided 3-D resolution based on fast focusing was accomplished in both microscopic and macroscopic spaces.