Abstract: A reader for a distributed-optical microfiche wherein each page of recorded intelligence is constituted by a reduced scale image that is dissected to form a pattern of dispersed bits. The several patterns representing the recorded pages are interlaced to produce a multi-page microfiche that is read back by irradiating and enlarging only a selected pattern of dispersed bits and projecting this pattern onto a screen. The reader includes a lens matrix formed by an array of individual lenslets, each optically aligned with a respective bit in the selected pattern to enlarge and project this bit onto a screen zone. Interposed between the lens matrix and the screen is an apertured melding mask having an array of openings corresponding to the array of lenslets and optically aligned therewith.

Abstract: A concentric self-conjugate optical system of substantially unit power is improved by altering the relations among the concentric spherical surfaces of the system to produce a circular locus of points of zero tangential aberration at a distance from the optical axis. The self-conjugate system is also improved by the incorporation of a novel concentric plano-convex triplet lens. The image and object planes of the concentric self-conjugate system are divorced by the use of prisms. The concentric system with divorced image and object planes is improved by the incorporation of a concentric doublet lens or by the incorporation of a novel concentric plano-convex triplet lens. The concentric system with its divorced image and object planes can also be modified to produce in the divorced image and object planes loci of points of zero tangential aberration.

Abstract: Three component beams are taken off three sides of a single filament light source, individually attenuated, colored in respective ones of the three additive primary colors red, blue and green and recombined to form three superimposed component images of the filament light source. The three superimposed images of the filament light source are positioned at the light source location for the printing camera. Adjacent the light source the three component beams pass through three apertures spaced from the source far enough to be located at a position where the light field is uniform. Three superimposed real images of these apertures are formed down-path of the superimposed images of the filament light source and coincident with the plane of the transparency to be printed.