Apparatus and method for measuring a two-dimensional point spread function of a digital image acquisition system

A method for generating a two-dimensional point spread function of a digital imaging system, comprising the steps of:

• defining a calibration chart having a first set of dots;
• recording an image of the calibration chart with the digital imaging system;
• the recorded image having pixels at a first resolution;
• identifying positions in the recorded image for locating the dots in the first set of dots;
• generating an image of a composite dot;
• and
• computing an inverse image of the composite dot image by reversing the values of pixels of the composite dot image;
• the inverse image defining a two-dimensional point spread function.

A method for measuring a point spread function (PSF) in two-dimensions, comprising the steps of:

• recording an image of a calibration chart;
• the calibration chart having a set of dots arranged thereon in a grid-like pattern;
• and
• deriving a two-dimensional PSF by inverting values of a composite dot image generated by performing the steps of:
• locating the positions of the dots in the set of dots in the recorded image of the calibration chart;
• computing a position for each pixels forming each dot in the set of dots relative to the positions of the entities located at said locating step;
• and
• generating the composite dot image by assigning gray values of each pixel forming each dot in the set of dots at the computed relative positions.