Andrey S. OSTROVSKY, Obdulio RAMOS-ROMERO and Mario V. RODRIGUEZ-SOLIS

Facultad de Ciencias Fisico-Matematicas, Benemerita Universidad Autonoma de Puebla, 72570 Puebla, Pue., Mexico

(Received May 16, 1996; Accepted August 19, 1996)

A new method for calculating image intensity distribution in partially coherent illumination is described. The method is based on the coherent-mode representation of the cross-spectral density function of illumination field and allows considerable reduction of the computational effort needed for image intensity calculation in comparison with the direct method. The computational efficiency of the method is larger the more coherent is the illumination in a global sense. An example of calculating image intensity for Schell-model illumination is compared with theoretical results.

Key words : partially coherent imagery, image intensity calculation, spectral coherence theory, coherent-mode expansion, Schell-model source