How optical test engineers test a satellite imager -or your smartphone camera- by testing its MTF

Did you ever wonder what makes a camera take a better picture?  Is it the number of pixels, or the lens, or the image stabilizer?  How do engineers get a handle on imaging system performance?  Measuring the Modulation Transfer Function (MTF) of an imaging system largely characterizes its performance.  Come to this explanation of how engineers measure and quantify this measure of imaging system performance, broken down so that it is understandable.  This presentation gives insight into engineering system test for optical systems, and gives useful knowledge on how optical systems are designed. This presentation will show how to set up the problem of image performance, and walk through how optical engineers quantify performance.  It includes theoretical basis, as well as test results taken from the literature.  Test setup and preparation for upcoming testing of a system will also be described.  The purpose of the presentation is to show methods used by professionals in industry as well as the approach and basis for interpreting those results, and how those measurements ultimately translate to how well an imaging system, whether it is a smartphone camera or a sattelite imager, makes images of a scene.