Wide angle optical imaging system

Claim 1

Optical imaging apparatus for viewing two- or three-dimensional models and remotely imaging the view comprising i. image producing means; ii. wide angle objective lens means for viewing the image producing means through approximately a field of view in the range of 90°-220°, 360° in azimuth about the optical axis of said objective lens means, said objective lens means producing a distorted aerial image, commonly referred to as fisheye distortion, at the focal plane thereof; iii. relay lens means adapted to reproduce the distorted aerial image from the objective lens means focal plane in a second aerial focal plane; iv. concave reflector means generally ellipsoidal and of an eccentricity such that the pupil of said relay lens means and the pupil of said reflector means are both at the foci of said reflector means which are positioned beyond said second aerial focal plane, said reflector being of such a size and shape that all of the principal rays from all image points in the distorted aerial image produced by the wide angle objective lens means and corresponding divergent rays from image points in the second aerial focal plane which reproduces the distorted aerial image are redirected and the divergent rays are approximately collimated towards the pupil of said reflector means thereby forming an optically accessible pupil conjugate to the pupil of the objective lens means which produces an approximately collimated image which corresponds to the entire field of view of the objective lens means in true angles, free from distortion which permits, in effect, viewing the external world from the pupil of the objective lens means which is totally inaccessible and which is the only point through which the external world can be viewed without distortion and with true perspective; and v. optical means to relay the collimated image produced at the pupil of said reflector means to an accessible viewing location.