Dihedral representations and statistical geometric optics. I. Spherocylindrical lenses.

The linear 2-dim irreducible representations of the dihedral groups (Dn) are interpreted as classical linear operators of geometrical optics. It is shown that the 2-dim irreducible representation of D4 is simply the refractive group described by Campbell [Optom. Vision Sci. 74, 381 (1997)]. The dihedral Fourier-inverse mechanism is introduced and shown to provide a systematic connection between the standard refractive data and their vector space representation, as proposed by Thibos et al. [Vision Sci. Appl. 2, 14 (1994)].