Auflösungstests

Auflösungstests, also known as resolution tests, are standardized procedures or patterns used to evaluate the resolving power of an optical or imaging system. This refers to the ability of the system to distinguish between two closely spaced points or lines. The effectiveness of a resolution test directly correlates to the clarity and detail that can be captured.

Commonly, resolution tests employ targets featuring a series of parallel lines or geometric shapes of progressively decreasing size. When an imaging system, such as a microscope, camera, or telescope, views these targets, the smallest features that can be clearly discerned provide a quantitative measure of its resolution. For instance, in microscopy, resolution is often expressed in terms of the minimum resolvable distance between two points, typically measured in micrometers.

The results of resolution tests are crucial for comparing different imaging devices, ensuring they meet specific performance standards, and optimizing their use. Factors like the wavelength of light, the numerical aperture of the optics, and the quality of the detector all influence the achievable resolution and are implicitly assessed through these tests. In digital imaging, resolution is also often discussed in terms of pixels per inch (PPI) or line pairs per millimeter (lp/mm), which relate to the density of information captured.