如何测量调制传递函数How to Measure Modulation Transfer Function

How to Measure Modulation Transfer Function

/blog/?p=1294

How to Measure Modulation Transfer Function (1)

In a simple wording, the modulation transfer function or MTF is a measure of the spatial resolution of an imaging component. The latter can be an image sensor, a lens, a mirror or the complete camera. In technical terms, the MTF is the magnitude of the optical transfer function, being the Fourier transform of the response to a point illumination.

The MTF is not really the most easiest measurement that can be done on an imaging system. Various methods can be used to characterize the MTF, such as the “slit image”, the “knife edge”, the “laser-speckle technique” and “imag ing of sine-wave patterns”.It should be noted that all method listed, except the “laser-speckle technique, measure the MTF of the complete imaging system : all parts of the imaging system are included, such as lens, filters (if any present), cover glass and image sensor. Even the effect of the processing of the sensor’s signal can have an influence on the MTF, and will be include in the measurement.

In this first MTF-blog the measurement of the modulation transfer function based on imaging with a sine-wave pattern will be discussed. It should be noted that in this case dedicated testcharts are used to measure the MTF, but the pattern on the chart should sinusoidally change between dark parts and light parts. In the case a square-wave pattern is used, not the MTF but the CTF (= Contrast Transfer Function) will be measured. And the values obtained for the CTF will be larger than the ones obtained for the MTF.

The method described here is based on the work of Anke Neumann, written down in her MSc thesis “Verfahren zur Aufloesungsmessung digitaler Kameras”, June 2003.The basic idea is to use a single testchart with a co-called Siemens-star. An example of such a testchart is illustrated in Figure 1.

Figure 1 : Output image of the camera-under-test observing the Siemens star.

(Without going further into detail, the testchart contains more structures than used in the reported measurement performed for the MTF.) The heart of the testchart is the Siemens star with 72 “spokes”.As can be seen the distance between the black and white structures on the chart is becoming larger if one moves away from the center of the chart. In other words, the spatial frequency of the sinusoidal pattern is becoming lower at the outside of the Siemens star, and is becoming higher closer to the center of the Siemens star. Around the center of the Siemens star, the spatial frequency of the sinusoidal pattern is even too high to be resolved by the camera-under-test and aliasing shows up. In the center of the Siemens star a small circle is included with 2 white and two black quarters. These are going to play a very important role in the measurements.

The measurement procedure goes as follows :

1.Focus the image of the Siemens star, placed in front of the camera, as good as possible

on the imager. Try to bring the Siemens star as close as possible to the edges (top and bottom) of the imager,

2.Shoot an image of the testchart (in the example described here, 50 images were taken

and averaged to limit the temporal noise).

In principle, these two steps is all one needs to be able to measure/calculate the MTF. But to obtain a higher accuracy of the measurements, the following additional steps might be required :

1.Cameras can operate with or without a particular offset corrected/added to the output

signal. For that reason it might be wise to take a dark reference frame to measure the offset and dark signal (including its non-uniformities) for later correction. In the experiments discussed here, 50 dark frames were taken and averaged to minimize the temporal noise.

2.The data used in the measurement is coming from a relatively large area of the sensor

and is relying on an uniform illumination of the complete Siemens star. Moreover, the