Retrieval of wave aberration of human eyes from actual point-spread-function data.

The wave aberration of human eyes is retrieved from actual point-spread-function (PSF) data and the modulus of the pupil function. The PSF had been obtained previously by application of a hybrid optical-digital method developed recently. The retrieval is done by using a bidimensional Gerchberg-Saxton phase-retrieval algorithm joined to an iterative phase-unwrapping algorithm. To obtain an adequate convergence, the initial wave aberration for starting the retrieval-unwrapping algorithm is estimated with a nonlinear least-squares algorithm. The resulting wave aberrations for several subjects show irregular aberrations superimposed upon the regular wave-aberration components, with astigmatism being the most important asymmetric aberration.