The 'Precessions' tooling for polishing and figuring flat, spherical and aspheric surfaces

The Precessions(TM) process has been developed for the control of texture ('polishing'), preservation of form during polishing, and control of form ('figuring'), on flat, spherical and aspheric surfaces. In this first and introductory paper, we summarize the need for aspherics, review some aspheric technologies, and then distill a 'wish-list' of attributes for an aspheric process. Within this context, we focus on special properties of Precessions tools, their use in a family of 7-axis CNC polishing machines, and present experimental results. (C) 2003 Optical Society of America.