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2001
Conference Paper
Titel
Integration of finite element methods in the Virtual Interferometer
Abstract
The Virtual Interferometer which has recently been developed at the Fraunhofer IPT allows a realistic reproduction of any physical interferometer in a computer and enables simulation of interferometrical measurements under accurately specified and, thus, perfectly known conditions. The Virtual Interferometer was written in Visual C++ and has recently been used to quantitatively determine the influence of errors in an interferometer on the measurement uncertainly, and may also be used together with several calibration standards to systematically investigate the error sources in a real interferometer and their effect on a certain measurement task. The examination of the effect of a certain error source on a specific measurement is a rather complex matter in a real interferometer since a single error-component can generally not be separated from other effects. However, in a virtual environment this may indeed be observed and closely examined.