“Measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not so.” – Galileo Galilei
Surface Optics Corporation was founded in 1977 to provide hemispherical and bidirectional reflectance measurements to the military to aid in quantifying observables in the ultra-violet, visible and infrared spectral domains.
Now, over 35 years later, SOC’s world-class measurement facility remains an industry leader in supplying high quality spectral directional and bidirectional reflectance measurements for modeling, simulation, special effects and low observable study. Spectral measurements can be made in wavelength regions from the ultraviolet to long wave infrared and include one or all of the following types of reflectance measurements.
Hemispherical Directional Reflectance
Measures the fraction of the light incident on a sample at a given angle that is reflected back into the hemisphere. Measurements of HDR from less than 0.3 μm to as far out as 100 μm. Typical HDR measurements are made out to 40 μm. We measure HDR as a function of incident elevation, polarization, wavelength, temperature, and provide both the specular and diffuse components.
Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF)
Bidirectional reflectance measurements span the range from less than 0.4 μm to beyond 14 μm with a full four degrees of angular freedom (incident elevation and azimuth, and reflected elevation and azimuth). BRDF measurements fully quantify not only how much a sample reflects, but also exactly where the reflected energy goes. These measurements are typically made broad-band, or at a series of customer specified wavelengths.
Emittance Data
From reflectance measurements (and transmittance where necessary), we also generate emittance data, again as a function of polarization, wavelength, angle, and temperature.