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I am trying to do ray tracing for an endoscope, but I don't see how it could form a sharp image that could be viewed at the eyepiece.

In the diagram the box in the middle is the "fiber", but the light from the object (the dot on the left) comes out of the fiber as if they originate from two locations (top and bottom), and if viewed through the eyepiece at the end, wouldn't two images form (the two dots on the right)?

Also, if just looking at the image end of the fiber by eye directly without eyepiece, one should still see the image of the object, right? I don't see how it would work with ray tracing in this case either. And should the image in this case be inverted or upright, or left/right flipped, or does it depend?

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Peter Mortensen
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Cosmo
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2 Answers2

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Optical fibres can be accurately aligned in an array such that the order of the fibres at one end is identical to the order in the other end to form what is called a coherent bundle. If an image is projected at one end of a bundle, each individual fibre transmits the light impinging on it, and the ordered array of optical fibres will transmit an image to the other end.

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An important thing to note is that the individual fibers used in a bundle are contained (clad) in a opaque covering so that light from one fibre does not go into an adjacent fibre.

Farcher
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5

The objective lens forms an image of the object on the end of the fiber bundle.

The fiber bundle is a bundle of very fine parallel fibers. Each fiber carries a pixel to the other end of the fiber bundle. What comes out of the fiber bundle looks just like what goes in.

The eyepiece send the image at the other end of the fiber bundle to your eye or a camera.

mmesser314
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