Petzval field curvature in the context of "Distortion (optics)"

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⭐ Core Definition: Petzval field curvature

Petzval field curvature, named for Joseph Petzval, describes the optical aberration in which a flat object normal to the optical axis (or a non-flat object past the hyperfocal distance) cannot be brought properly into focus on a flat image plane. Field curvature can be corrected with the use of a field flattener, designs can also incorporate a curved focal plane like in the case of the human eye in order to improve image quality at the focal surface.

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Petzval field curvature in the context of Barrel distortion

In geometric optics, distortion is a deviation from rectilinear projection; a projection in which straight lines in a scene remain straight in an image. It is a form of optical aberration that may be distinguished from other aberrations such as spherical aberration, coma, chromatic aberration, field curvature, and astigmatism in a sense that these impact the image sharpness without changing an object shape or structure in the image (e.g., a straight line in an object is still a straight line in the image although the image sharpness may be degraded by the mentioned aberrations) while distortion can change the object structure in the image (so named as distortion).

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