Patent ID: 8259180

Claim:
An imaging capability estimation method for an image-formation optical system, which method uses a random pattern which is a binary pattern comprising white and black dots lined up at random in row and column directions, and when 1 is allocated to a white dot and 0 is allocated to a black dot and all rows or columns are sequentially linked together into a series of sequence of numbers, 1 and 0 are lined up along said sequence of numbers at random and out of order, and which is characterized in that a distribution of mean values of randomly extracted samples converge into a normal distribution according to the central limit theorem, wherein: the random pattern satisfies one of the following conditions: I ≦4 ×p /|β|, or I ≦4 ×P /|β|, where I is a lattice size of the random pattern, |β| is a magnification of the image-formation optical system, p is a sampling interval corresponding to a pixel pitch of an image pickup device, and P is a value, calculated as size on an image plane, of one of: (a) a pixel pitch or a minimum information unit on estimation image signals, and (b) a pixel pitch or minimum display unit on estimation display image, an image of said random pattern is picked up through said image-formation optical system, a texture statistic is calculated from the thus picked up random pattern image, and said image-formation optical system is estimated for imaging capability, using the obtained texture statistic.