title: The average eye.
abstract: For statistical and other purposes one needs to be able to determine an average eye. An average of refractive errors is readily calculated as an average of dioptric power matrices. A refractive error, however, is not so much a property of the eye as a property of the compensating lens in front of the eye. As such, it ignores other aspects of the optical character of the eye. This paper discusses the difficulties of finding a suitable average that fully accounts for the first-order optics of a set of optical systems. It proposes an average based on ray transferences and logarithms and exponentials of matrices. Application to eyes in particular is discussed.
authors.affiliation: Optometric Science Research Group, Department of Optometry, Rand Afrikaans University, P. O. Box 524, Auckland Park, 2006 South Africa. wfh@na.rau.ac.za
authors.forename: W F
authors.initials: WF
authors.lastname: Harris
mesh_terms: D005123:Eye / Q000033:anatomy & histology; D006801:Humans; D008433:Mathematics; D008954:Models, Biological; D009799:Ocular Physiological Phenomena; D055095:Optics and Photonics; D012030:Refractive Errors / Q000503:physiopathology*