Mr. James Mulherin, Cheif Optician and CEO of
Torus Technologies thinks the P-V Wavefront Error measurement is too harsh on
a mirror. I can see why he would be more amenable to a less stringent test.
Mr. Mulherin quotes Mr. Daniel Malacara's "Optical Shop Testing" in which
Mr. Malacara says:
"The Peak to Valley Error must be regarded with some skepticism because it
is calculated from the worst two interferometric data points out of possible
thousands. It might make the system under test appear worse than it really
is." ( The underlining is mine. )
To me, this sounds like an industry closing ranks
to defend an inferior product standard. However, Mr. Mulherin does have
some valid points to make, so I shall continue to quote him with occasional
editing remarks of my own. He goes on to say: "A mirror with a true P-V
Wavefront Error of l/4 as verified by interferometry, will in any case meet or
exceed the RMS Wavefront and Strehl Ratio criterion described
below." As a programmer I can visualize the required 'C' code needed for the
software that performs the statistic Mr. Mulherin refers to next. While the
scanning routines would be moderately complex, the statistical calculations
are straight foward.