Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Maryland), at left, and SPIE President Eustace Dereniak ceremoniously opened the record-breaking SPIE Defense, Security, and Sensing exhibition.

BALTIMORE, Maryland, and BELLINGHAM, Washington, USA -- The debut of SPIE Defense, Security, and Sensing in Baltimore drew more than 6,700 attendees, the most ever for the week-long conference and exhibition serving industry, government and academia. The 2012 event set new records in the technical program, with 2,450 presentations, and in the exhibition, with 540 exhibitors and an 18 percent increase in exhibit visitors.

"Our conference attendees have overwhelmingly endorsed our move to the new location, chosen because of proximity to government and research facilities and decision makers in the Washington, D.C., area, and area amenities," said Peter Hallett, SPIE director of Marketing and Industry Relations.

SPIE Defense, Security, and Sensing is the only annual conference and exhibition on the East Coast of the U.S. focused on optical science and engineering, including lasers, sensors, and imaging systems. The event will return to Baltimore in May 2013.

Growing conferences on multispectral and hyperspectral systems, signal processing, data fusion, and automatic processing of big data continue to push the frontier of advanced technology into real-world applications.

This event is the largest gathering of developers and suppliers of infrared systems. Beyond infrared, SPIE Defense, Security, and Sensing draws developers of photonic sensors that measure the spectroscopic signatures of materials ranging from chemicals, biological materials, trace gases, or toxin, Hallett noted. "Applications include oceanography, pollution control, precision agriculture, pathogen detection, and many in defense and security," Hallett said. "This work involves lasers, detectors, and people across disciplines including physics, engineering, and computer sciences."

Banquet speaker Paul Kaminski (Technovision) was awarded the SPIE Defense, Security, and Sensing Lifetime Achievement Award.

Symposium plenary speaker was Bruce Carlson, director of the National Reconnaissance Office

Daily reports, photos, and links to news coverage are on the event news site at http://www.spie.org/DSSnews.

SPIE is the international society for optics and photonics, a not-for-profit organization founded in 1955 to advance light-based technologies. The Society serves nearly 225,000 constituents from approximately 150 countries, offering conferences, continuing education, books, journals, and a digital library in support of interdisciplinary information exchange, professional growth, and patent precedent. SPIE provided over $2.5 million in support of education and outreach programs in 2011.

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