Patent ID: 6895334

Claim:
A method of optimizing an optical system, comprising the steps of: optimizing an optical system as a subject of design by changing design parameters in a manner that a value of a first optical property approaches a target value on the basis of a first merit function for optimization in which the target value of the first optical property including at least an aberration is set; automatically adjusting the first merit function in a manner that a value of a second optical property which is different from the first optical property approaches a desired target value of the second optical property on the basis of a second merit function for optimization in which the target value of the second optical property is set, after the optical system as a subject of design is evaluated while regarding the second optical property as a subject of evaluation; and re-optimizing the optical system, which has been optimized, on the basis of the first merit function automatically adjusted, wherein each of the first merit function and the second merit function is a sum total of functions represented by w i *(f i −t i) 2 of the first optical property or the second optical property (where ‘f i ’ means an evaluated value of the i th optical property included in the first or the second optical property (i represents an integer greater than or equal to 1); ‘t i ’ means a target value of the i th optical property; ‘w i ’ means a weight value of the i th optical property; and ‘*’ means multiplication, in the step of optimizing the optical system, the design parameters are adjusted in a manner that the first merit function takes the minimum, and in the step of automatically adjusting the first merit function, the target value t i and the weight value w i of the first merit function are adjusted in a manner that the second merit function takes the minimum.