The purpose of this book is to provide an introduction to the practice of lens design. As the title suggests, successful design will require the application of individual creativity as well as artful manipulation and thorough comprehension of the numeric tools available in lens design programs. The technology, user connection, and breadth of the commercial lens design programs have reached a very high level. The availability of inexpensive, high-speed personal computers and user-friendly operating systems has brought the computational tools within economic reach of any individual.

This book covers the basics of image formation, system layout, and image evaluation, and contains a number of examples of lens designs. There are several excellent books in existence that are principally a compilation of the results of the design of several types of lenses. In this book, it is my intention to describe the process rather than the results. The explanations of the basics are provided here in a practical manner and in a level of detail sufficient to provide an understanding of the principles. The selected examples of designs include a narrative of the thinking and approach toward the decisions that need to be made by the designer when carrying out the work. The principles are, of course, independent of the software used. Each example shown does provide the opportunity to exploit different avenues of approach to the design.

Several different lens design programs have been used to provide the majority of the illustrations in this book.