ABSTRACT
Fourier analysis provides an elegant means of understanding and describing how optical systems process light to form images. Fourier transforms are particularly useful in analyzing optical processes such as Fraunhofer diffraction in terms of spatial frequencies. The central notion is that a periodic function f(θ) such as f(θ) = f(θ + 2π), defined within the interval −π < x < π, can be represented by a sum of harmonic functions consisting of series of sines and cosines.
