Assessment of a Wigner-distribution-functionbased method to compute the polychromatic axial response given by an aberrated optical system

A numerical method that uses the Wigner distribution function to compute the impulse response along the optical axis provided by an aberrated optical system is evaluated. The technique is compared with a classical method used to compute the response integral. Test systems with pupils of nonconventional shape are considered. It is shown that, in general, the same degree of accuracy for the computation of the polychromatic merit functions is achieved faster by use of this novel method.