January 13, 2021
Imaging and Machine Vision Europe magazine features Surface Optics Corporation in a cover story for its December 2020 / January 2021 edition. IMVE Magazine publishes content for design and production engineers working in the scientific imaging and machine vision market. In the article titled “Plastic not fantastic”, Editor Greg Blackman looks at how shortwave infrared […]
October 10, 2020
Plastics have long been receiving attention due to their abundance in daily use, as well as their loss to the environment as debris. Plastic pollution is widely accepted as an environmental crisis, particularly in marine environments as millions of tons of plastics enter the oceans annually. Although some macro plastics can be determined using visible-range […]
September 23, 2020
Space-based construction materials must meet a range of requirements: mechanical robustness, lightweight characteristics, and tolerance to heat. There are three optical requirements for heat management to protect sensitive instrumentation and personnel: high solar reflectance, high thermal emissivity, and a sufficiently diffuse surface. These properties ensure that the spacecraft will remain cool, and the thermal control […]
August 22, 2020
Most plastics are typically transparent in the visible spectral range, rendering them challenging to detect using silicon-based vision sensors. In this work a SWIR hyperspectral imaging system is used to collect the SWIR hyperspectral signatures as well as spatial information of a variety of plastics outdoors to test this technology for plastic debris detection and […]
May 4, 2020
SPIE Defense + Commercial Sensing, organized by the international society for optics and photonics, is underway this week in a new virtual format accessible until May 8, 2020. Registration is free and gains access to more than 600 presentations, 450 papers, and plenary speakers. Presentations by Surface Optics customers at SPIE DCS 2020 include: Conference […]
May 29, 2019
BP deploys advanced infrared camera that can support methane emissions management by monitoring emissions in real time SAN DIEGO, Calif., May 31, 2019 – Surface Optics Corporation is part of an industry team behind an infrared (IR) camera that BP plc group businesses are using to manage methane emissions at oil and gas production facilities […]
March 7, 2019
Reflectance imaging spectroscopy (RIS) in the visible and near infrared is revolutionizing the way cultural heritage investigators may analyze paintings nondestructively. In an ongoing, highly collaborative project, the authors are investigating a painting by American artist John White Alexander (1856–1915). The painting, titled A Study in Pink, is in the collection of the Virginia Museum […]
June 13, 2018
Determining the optical properties of complex surfaces for signature analysis can be problematic. Materials with surface structures, e.g, crinkled or patterned foil appliques, or striated or ribbed surfaces will produce a non-isotropic BRDF, which can be difficult to measure and represent in signature models. This paper will describe an analytical approach to predicting the optical […]
Dr. James Jafolla, President of Surface Optics Corporation, presented today at the 13th International IR Target and Background Modeling & Simulation Workshop (ITBMS) convened in Banyuls-sur-mer, France. The ITBMS workshop is a forum for the IR modeling and simulation community to discuss current developments in their field of expertise. Dr. Jafolla’s presentation was titled, “The Prediction and Measurement of the Optical Properties of Complex Surfaces.”
May 8, 2018
The Spectral-Polarimetric Hypersensor (SPH) is a new compact, solid state, video rate imaging system with no moving parts capable of capturing up to 16 bands of both spectral and polarimetric content simultaneously. For these imagers, which are an adaptation of a plenoptic system, all elements for a given super pixel sample the same point in […]