The invention discloses a design method of a non-imaging optical element. In the method, an object space serves as a
light source, and an image space serves as an irradiated plane. The method comprises the following steps of: introducing a concept of a
luminous flux line, wherein the
luminous flux line is a
ray vector having determined energy; based on a
light intensity distribution requirement of the object space, converting the
light intensity distribution of the object space into the distribution of the
luminous flux line according to a law that a product of
light intensity and a
solid angle is in proportion to the energy; based on an illumination distribution requirement of the image space, converting into the light intensity distribution of the image space, and then converting into the distribution of the luminous flux line according to the same law; following an
energy conservation law, wherein the
energy conservation law is a luminous flux line
conservation law, the total number of the luminous
flux lines of the object space and the image space is equal, and the luminous
flux lines of the object space and the image space are in one-to-one correspondence; and gradually usinga
refraction law or a reflection law for the respective luminous
flux lines, and sequentially connecting obtained respective
refraction small planes or reflection small planes to obtain the shape of the optical element. The method has a new optical design concept, and is simple, convenient, intuitive and quite high in applicability.