Infrared @ DSS 2008

Just spent four days at the several Infrared Conferences that are part of the SPIE DSS meetings plus one of the world’s biggest Infrared & Optical Expos in the world. It was all held in Orlando Florida, USA at the giant Marriott World Center.

The Infrared Conferences consisted of ThermoSense XXX (The Industry & Research Applications conference), Infrared Technologies and Applications XXXIV and Infrared Imaging Systems: Design, Analysis, Modeling and Testing XIX.

ThemoSense was kicked off by the Fourth Annual Vendors Presentations & Reception on Monday evening and was followed by 13 Technology applications sessions ranging from Pyrometry to Image Fusion and NDE Materials Evaluation during Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday.

Infrared Technologies and Applications XXXIV began Monday morning and presented 23 sessions on Monday through Thursday. The sessions included a series of Poster sessions and a Keynote Address by P.R. Norton od the US Army Night Vision & Electronics Directorate.

Topics of the technical sessions ranged in subject matter from emerging Focal Plane Arrays ans novel Uncooled Technologies thru a special focus session on Infrared Activities in Japan.

Infrared Imaging Systems XIX started on Tuesday and ran through Thursday. It also included a large series of Poster presentations, several session on Modeling and atmospheric effects as well as some special topics in systems testing.

Two unique papers this year included presentations from the Fire Research Division at The National Institute of Science & Technology on the measurement of effective temperature range of fire service thermal imagers and some practical measurements of the nonuniformity of fire service thermal imagers.

The Expo was huge and the exposition halls at the Marriott world were overflowing with many familiar and several new exhibitors.

Among the newest sales booths were those from Surface Optics, IRCAM GmbH, StingRay Optics and Texas Infrared (InfraredCamerasInc.com).

One of the most significant announcements of Infrared Industry companies was the consolidation of three separate NEC Infrared operations, NEC Corp, NEC San’ei Instruments Ltd. and Nippon Avionics C. Ltd (Avio) into one effective April 1, 2008.