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We present the current status of cosmic shear studies and their implications on cosmological models. Theoretical expectations and observational results are discussed in the framework of standard cosmology and CDM scenarios. The potentials of the next generation cosmic shear surveys are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gravitational weak shear produced by large-scale structures of the universe induces a correlated ellipticity distribution of distant galaxies. The amplitude and evolution with angular scale of the signal depend on cosmological models and can be inverted in order to constrain the power spectrum and the cosmological parameters. We present our recent analysis of 50 uncorrelated VLT fields and the very first constrains on ( $\Omega_m, \sigma_8$) and the nature of primordial fluctuations based on the join analysis of present-day cosmic shear surveys. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The VIRMOS preparatory imaging survey (Le Fèvre et al. 2003) was designed to provide a photometric coverage in the UBVRI bands of one deep and three wide areas to be be observed with VIMOS. The U-band data for the deep and one wide area are here presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the cosmic shear statistics using the ray-tracing simulation combined with a set of large N-body simulations. In this contribution, we summarize some selected results especially focusing on the skewness of the probability distribution function of the lensing convergence. Its values at intermediate scales and the source clustering effect on its measurement are numerically examined and the results are compared with the semi-analytical prediction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]