Calculation of the influence of lateral chromatic aberration on image quality across the visual field

The magnitude of lateral chromatic aberration and its effect on image contrast were computed for a modified, reduced-eye model of the human eye, using geometrical optics. The results indicate that lateral chromatic aberration is a major factor affecting image quality for obliquely incident rays of polychromatic light. Modulation transfer functions for white sinusoidal gratings decline monotonically with spatial frequency, with eccentricity of the stimulus in the peripheral visual field, with grating orientation relative to the visual meridian, and with decentering of the pupil. Image contrast is largely independent of the color temperature of white light over the range 2800 to 12,000 K, but it improves significantly for the polychromatic green light of the P-31 oscilloscope phosphor. Selective filtering by macular pigment increases image contrast by an amount that grows with spatial frequency to about a factor of 1.5 at the foveal resolution limit. Reduced contrast caused by lateral chromatic aberration accounts for most of the threefold loss of acuity that occurs for foveal viewing through a decentered pupil. The aberration probably has negligible effect on peripheral acuity but may act to limit aliasing of peripheral patterns.