Orthonormal curvature polynomials over a unit circle: Basis set derived from curvatures of Zernike polynomials

Zernike polynomials are an orthonormal set of scalar functions over a circular domain, and are commonly used to represent wavefront phase or surface irregularity. In optical testing, slope or curvature of a surface or wavefront is sometimes measured instead, from which the surface or wavefront map is obtained. Previously we derived an orthonormal set of vector polynomials that fit to slope measurement data and yield the surface or wavefront map represented by Zernike polynomials. Here we define a 3-element curvature vector used to represent the second derivatives of a continuous surface, and derive a set of orthonormal curvature basis functions that are written in terms of Zernike polynomials. We call the new curvature functions the C polynomials. Closed form relations for the complete basis set are provided, and we show how to determine Zernike surface coefficients from the curvature data as represented by the C polynomials.