Bending modes for active optics

While the concept of wavefront decomposition is a foundation of active optics systems, the choice of basis functions for mirror figure control is divided. The common functions are Zernike polynomials, ubiquitously used for wavefront descriptions, and bending (also called minimum energy or vibration) modes which offer optimal performance. We present a look at the comparative performance between the two approaches, and discuss an implementation approach which seeks to combine much of the analytic and interface simplicity of Zernike polynomials with the improved performance of bending modes.