Local injection compression molding for resource efficient replication of free form polymer optics

This paper describes a manufacturing strategy for increasing resource efficiency in the production of polymer optics by use of a local injection compression molding process and a three-dimensional tactile metrology system. As this process offers a lot more parameters for the process optimization than a conventional injection molding process, a suitable evaluation method for the form accuracy and the influence of the form deviations on the optical function of the part is needed. The authors present a technique based on radial basis functions to make the deviations visible.