CARDINALPOINT

Cardinal point

In Gaussian optics, the cardinal points consist of three pairs of points located on the optical axis of a rotationally symmetric, focal, optical system. These are the focal points, the principal points, and the nodal points. For ideal systems, the basic imaging properties such as image size, location, and orientation are completely determined by the locations of the cardinal points; in fact only four points are necessary: the focal points and either the principal or nodal points. The only ideal system that has been achieved in practice is the plane mirror, however the cardinal points are widely used to ...

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cardinal point

Noun

  1. Any of the four principal compass directions - north, south, east and west


The above text is a snippet from Wiktionary: cardinal point
and as such is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

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