Patent ID: 6922292

Claim:
A vehicular vision system comprising: a wide angle lens group positionable on a portion of a vehicle for refracting a virtual image of an exterior view from the vehicle, thereby creating a wide angle refracted image, said wide angle lens group including an outer negative optic and an inner negative optic, said wide angle lens group comprising at least one of a polycarbonate and acrylic material; a focusing lens group which receives said refracted image and focuses the refracted image onto an image plane; an image capture device positioned on said image plane to receive the focused image from said focusing lens group, said wide angle lens group and said focusing lens group defining an optic path between an outer end of said wide angle lens group and said image capture device; an image distortion correction process whereby an image captured by said vision system is processed to correct distortion therein, said image distortion correction process being at least partially provided by a plurality of refractive optics, said wide angle lens group including at least one wide angle diffractive element positioned along said optic path, said wide angle diffractive element correcting color focusing of the refracted virtual image; and a display which displays a substantially non-distorted image of the scenic information, the non-distorted image being communicated from said image distortion process, wherein said wide angle diffractive element is on an outer surface of said inner negative optic, said wide angle diffractive element being defined by the equation: Φ= A 1 ρ 2 +A 2 ρ 4 where ρ is a radial uperture coordinate divided by 1 mm, A 1 is a constant within a range of approximately 15 to 55 and A 2 is a constant within a range of approximately −0.01 to −0.5.