Talk:Optical transfer function

message: The section “Factors affecting MTF in typical camera systems” makes a lot of sweeping statements without any citations. I think this section should be marked as needing citations. I tried to read the documentation on how to do that but didn’t understand it. Perhaps someone more experienced can place that tag on this section.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.31.163.83 (talk) 13:39, 27 March 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Uncited Section 

message: I'm sorry, but I regard myself as a reasonably intelligent person and have been told by many people that I am regarded by them as highly intelligent. So what the blazes is going on here? I turned to this link from the "Spy Satellites" article and instead of an explanation found a highly technical article which requires a great deal of prior knowledge on the subject at hand. As you may assume, I don.'t have that knowledgebase and therefore found the article less than useful. Indeed, I walked away less clear and decidedly more frustrated.
Please don't think I am being insulting to the author/s in any way, I am merely conveying my personal experience as best as I can. In my own experience I know it can be far too easy to be too close to one's work and not realise one is unintentionally leaving folks behind. And as an encyclopedia is an 'everyman' sort of reference, I feel this article needs further work, perhaps with a clear mind to it being a Wikipedia article and not a technical reference work of the field thus making it possible for the lay person to understand.
Thanks and kindest regards,
Outofthewoods (talk) 08:42, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree this is an overly technical article with no non-technical introduction. I didn't see it linked from spy satellite. This page needs love, but it is intrinsically technical as opposed to say image resolution; the page that linked you here should probably link there or somewhere similarly less-technical. —Ben FrantzDale (talk) 12:38, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I regard myself as an expert in this area, having worked on the development of ccd cameras and image conversion for many years. So I have re-written from scratch.  Hope this meets with approval. -Lindosland (talk) 11:20, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  It's still quite technical.  It could probably be improved with a visual example or two. 216.118.216.42 (talk) 19:35, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  I am a retired physics teacher and degree holder in technical imaging and this article is just total rubbish. I've known about and used the concept of MTF in all sorts of fields, including professional telescope mirror making, for over 50 years, yet this would have to be the worst technical article on Wikipedia. Condescending, impenetrable and useless for someone seeking to understand the basics of MTF, let alone understand the usage of it as an everyday tool in so many fields to do with optics, radio frequency transmission and information technology generally. No introduction to the wave theory of light, nothing. Typical of nerds who know a bit about technology, except how to teach. Useless.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.212.129.70 (talk) 08:16, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: WP:SOFIXIT.  Dicklyon (talk) 08:35, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Doh! 

message: One of the equations in the "advanced" section introduces a mystery term λ(ξ,η) apparently defined nowhere else in the article-- this needs a definition, or the equation is simply baffling, rather than informative. -- The Anome (talk) 21:37, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mystery term in equation 

message: The paragraph "Measuring the OTF" discusses the gratings necessary, but not how to measure the OTF. The only hint given is that the OTF is the Fourier transform of the Point spread function.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.32.113.96 (talk) 11:40, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Measuring the OTF 

message: Someone suggested merging these two articles over a year ago. It seems obvious as nothing on Modulation transfer function (infrared imaging) is really infrared-specific. Is there any reason not to merge these? —Ben FrantzDale (talk) 13:37, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, please do merge it.  Dicklyon (talk) 05:52, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge from [[Modulation transfer function (infrared imaging)]] 

message: 1. For correctness I removed the final line on Scanning Electron Microscopy as it has no optical transfer function:
In the case of the Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), the electron detectors do not capture the phase of the electrons, and, therefore, the PTF can be disregarded, leaving the MTF equivalent to the OTF.
Although it certainly can be regarded to have a transfer function, electrons, not photons lie at the basis of its functioning. Furthermore, the term PTF (phase transfer function) refers to the complex argument of the optical transfer function, not the phase of electrons (or photons). For example: an asymmetric spot in SEM would have a non-zero PTF.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tom.vettenburg (talk • contribs) 17:59, 18 August 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed lines from More Advanced Details section 

message: Currently, it seems that the most developed part of the article is that explaining the relationship between optical transfer function and sampling (pixel resolution). At present, many important aspects are barely touch up on. Some are covered in the modulation transfer function article, though this seems to rather specific on infrared imaging and certain techniques of determining it. Neither article does give much detail on the theory, and only one example is shown of a modulation transfer function, none for the optical transfer function. A more general article, covering the important aspects with theory, examples, and applications would require some restructuring. I started working on that in my sandbox and welcome any comments. For now I just adapted the introduction and included a figure with examples of the optical transfer function.
Tom.vettenburg (talk) 00:32, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Addition of general theory and examples - towards a merge with Modulation Transfer Function (Infrared Imaging)? 

message: This article has some description of the OTF/MTF of an optical system imaging on film, but nothing about the film itself.  Film data sheets give the MTF for the film itself.  Since film can't resolve phase (except in holography), it is MTF instead of OTF, but the article claims to do both. Gah4 (talk) 08:17, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  film 

message: It seems to me that resolution should be specified as a spatial frequency, and not as a distance. At one point the article says it could be said that its resolution is 2 μm, though mostly it seems to use spatial frequency. I suspect that this goes back to WP:RS which probably often enough get it wrong.  But for high resolution to have the right meaning, it needs to be spatial frequency. Gah4 (talk) 01:57, 6 December 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  distance or spatial frequency? 

message: The plots of MTF/OTF stop at the cut-off frequency, as if there no MTF/OTF above this point.  This leads to a lot of confusion: very often people get an impression that “something may happen above this frequency” — it is just not written explicitly.  It is very important that these plots must be extended by 0 to the right of the cut-off frequency!
(In fact, it is clear why the plots are constructed this way: the text — many times — mentions the point where the graph reaches 0, and it is much easier to see this point if “something abrupt” happens there.  But this “abrupt” change may be a color change!)
It would also be nice if the text would reiterate at all suitable points that MTF/OTF is zero above the diffraction cut-off frequency for every optical system….  --Ilya-zz (talk) 02:19, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  The plots are extremely confusing