SPIE online courses are on-demand and self-paced, with access for one year. For more information: ONLINE COURSES

This course will provide the technical manager, sales engineering, marketing staff, or other non-optics personnel with a basic understanding of the terms, specifications, and measurements used in optical technology to facilitate effective communication with optics professionals on a functional level. Topics to be covered include basic concepts such as interference, diffraction, polarization and aberrations, definitions relating to color and optical quality, and an overview of the basic measures of optical performance such as MTF and wavefront error. The material will be presented with a minimal amount of math, rather emphasizing working concepts, definitions, rules of thumb, and visual interpretation of specifications. Specific applications will include defining basic imaging needs such as magnification and depth-of-field, understanding MTF curves and interferograms, and interpreting radiometric terms. The general objective of this course is to enable individuals that need to: read and explain optical system descriptions and papers; ask the right questions about optical component performance; describe basic optical specifications for lenses, filters, and other components; select the right off-the-shelf lenses, filters, and beam directing optics; interpret optical data such as interferogram, MTF and aberration reports.

This online course includes full video recording of the instructor.

RECOMMENDED Textbook Optical Engineering Fundamentals, 2nd Edition(SPIE, 2009) by Bruce H. Walker.

Attendee Testimonials
Instructor was extremely knowledgeable on the subject matter, but was still able to instruct to my "basic" level of understanding.

The broad overview provided a great introduction to optics and the nature of light.

Nice applicable example stories.