Patent ID: 8005314

Claim:
A method for producing an extended depth of field image of an object, comprising the steps of: (a) deforming an optical wave front of light from the object to produce modified light, such that a point spread function (PSF) of an imaging system used to collect the modified light is substantially invariant across the extended depth of field, wherein an optical element is used to deform the optical wave front, the optical element comprising a cuvette having different optical thicknesses at different locations, such that imaging through the different locations of the cuvette induces different degrees of wave front deformation; (b) dispersing the modified light, producing dispersed light; (c) focusing the dispersed light to produce at least one dispersed image, the dispersed image being formed by light simultaneously collected from a plurality of different focal planes in the extended depth of field; (d) detecting the dispersed image of the object to generate image data; and (e) processing the image data to reduce artifacts introduced by deforming the optical wave front, to produce the extended depth of field image of the object.