Taught by experts and designed for real‑world application, SPIE courses help you build skills you can use immediately. Explore topics including optomechanics, optical system design and testing, CMOS, adaptive optics, machine learning, quantum technology essentials, lidar engineering, and more.
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SPIE courses are designed to expand your knowledge and skills. Take what you learn in class and apply it directly to your work.
Full course program available when registration opens later this month.
There is more than one reason to take a course:
Standards foster communication with customers and build confidence in your products. Step up and beat your competition with demonstrated and expert-maintained test methods. Many are familiar with ISO standards for Quality Management (ISO 9000) and Drawing Formats (ISO 10110). Did you know that there are over 100 ISO documents that outline specific methods to measure optical characteristics and performance? These expert-maintained standardized tests can be used to (a) use established methods to get started, (b) implement consistent procedures throughout development and production, (c) earn customers’ trust in your products through use and advertising, (d) determine how your vendors or competitors test their products, and/or (e) upgrade from non-supported MIL standards. The ISO standards address materials, coatings, laser beams, image quality, environment, and more. However, knowing what’s out there and finding the standard you need can be challenging. Created and taught by Optics and Electro-Optics Standards Council (OEOSC) experts, this course will allow you to identify and use tests that you need for success. The full list of categorized standards will be provided and select tests will be detailed. Ample opportunities for feedback from your industry to the standards community will be offered.
Image noise is a critical factor in overall image quality. This course provides a clear, comprehensive understanding of where noise originates, how it propagates through imaging systems, and how it is influenced by design choices. Participants will explore the physics of noise generation in sensors and learn how different stages of the imaging pipeline—from light capture to digital output—modify noise characteristics. A major focus of the course is on applying international standards for noise measurement, including ISO 15723, ISO 14524, EMVA 1288, and the 3D Noise method commonly used in aerospace, defense, and infrared sensor characterization. While this year’s session will be primarily lecture-based, participants will see detailed walkthroughs of the data analysis process for each standard and learn how to compare their results. By the end of the course, students will have the foundation needed to perform hands-on measurements and interpret results confidently in future projects. This year’s course introduces coverage of IEEE P2020, the emerging benchmark for automotive and ADAS imaging performance, alongside established standards (ISO 15723, ISO 14524, EMVA 1288, and 3D Noise). The course also emphasizes a primarily lecture-based format with detailed data analysis walkthroughs, preparing participants for future hands-on sessions while still enabling meaningful comparisons across standards.
A critical gap exists in the design of optical systems at the intersection of optical tolerancing and mechanical tolerancing for many imaging systems. This course bridges this gap by providing designers a methodical and detailed approach to determining lens positions and orientations by analyzing the manufacturing tolerances of the mechanical components. The course is presented through a single optical design that analyzed for three different mounting modalities: 1) drop-in alignment, 2) poker chip assemblies, and 3) full, active alignment. The course will cover a general model for lens mounting kinematics that is the foundation of the approach. This model will then be used in conjunction with mechanical components manufactured with different manufacturing techniques and different tolerancing schemes. The outcome is to demonstrate a method analyzing the impact of mechanical components tolerances, assembly tolerances, and alignment on the overall optical system performance.
Lidar systems are everywhere. Everyone sees self-driving cars that use lidars for perception and navigation and many people even have a lidar in their mobile phone. The rapid expansion of lidar into numerous applications has created a large demand for professionals who understand the principles that govern the design, calibration, and operation of lidar systems. This course explains basic principles and tradeoffs in the engineering and application of lidar systems (lidar is light detection and ranging, sometimes written as LiDAR). Radiometric principles are used to illustrate the assumptions and meaning of the lidar equation that predicts lidar signals as a function of range and target optical properties. The flow down of system requirements to system layout and capabilities is discussed, along with fundamental limits and tradeoffs for parameters such as scan rate and maximum detectable range and for architectures from time-of-flight to coherent lidar systems. Examples are explained for tiny mobile-phone lidars to large truck-based lidars for applications that include autonomous vehicle perception, precision agriculture, gas detection, 3D solid object imaging, and environmental science. This course is an ideal introduction to lidar engineering principles for anyone needing to understand how lidar systems are developed and calibrated and the basic architectures used in the increasingly wide array of lidars used in modern remote sensing.
For those of us most interested in inventing, developing and using optical instruments, “wave optics” can often feel like a beautiful yet mysterious realm of advanced mathematics, rather than a practical tool. We struggle with seemingly complicated ideas—Helmholtz equations, Green’s functions, Rayleigh-Sommerfeld diffraction, and Kirchoff approximations. The solution to all this complexity is Fourier optics—an amazingly powerful and practical approach to solving physical optics problems. With a bit of experience, it becomes as intuitive and familiar as tracing lines to show how lenses work. In this course, we review the origins and everyday use of Fourier optics. We will chart a course through the wave theory to understand at a conceptual level the links between Fourier methods and the fundamentals of diffraction, using visually compelling diagrams and images that provide meaning to the most essential mathematical expressions. The next step will be some practical examples and shortcuts for analyzing imaging systems as well as instruments for 3D surface form and texture measurements. As a final topic, we will explore how to make the best use of modern, on-line artificial intelligence (AI) to assist in learning the principles of Fourier optics and to rapidly solve practical problems related to physical optics and diffraction using AI-generated MATLAB code.
This is an intermediate level course that progresses from introductory ideas at the undergraduate college level to advanced skills characteristic of current research in optical instrumentation.
Nearly all optical remote sensing systems look through the atmosphere of Earth or a distant planet, and many increasingly look through water in the ocean, lakes, or rivers. The same is true for many free-space optical communication systems and for machine vision systems. Environmental optical effects are therefore a fundamental part of almost all optical sensing or communication systems. This course explains basic principles of environmental optical effects, emphasizing the roles of absorption, emission, and scattering in the atmosphere, but including discussion of these effects in water. The randomness introduced by turbulence is discussed only briefly, as there are multiple other courses that address this important effect in detail. In this course we discuss how absorption, emission, and scattering vary with wavelength, polarization, and direction in the air and water. An important outcome will be insight into why the atmosphere “glows” in the infrared and how this emission reduces contrast in thermal imaging and in infrared lidar or free-space laser beam propagation. Optical scattering processes will be simplified to enhance physical understanding of how light scattering varies with particle shape and size.
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Course registrations include a printed copy of the course materials. Some courses may include textbooks. Check the course descriptions for more information.
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Yes, you may register on site for courses that still have open seats. However, we recommend registering for courses early to ensure you get a seat in the course you want. Courses do fill up, so a seat may not be available. Also, courses without sufficient registration three weeks prior to the event are subject to cancellation.
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Sometimes, a course instructor becomes unavailable and needs to cancel their course. Or, if there is an insufficient number of registrations three weeks prior to the conference, SPIE reserves the right to cancel a course.
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No, the in-person courses will not be recorded. You must take the course on site at the specified time.
No, there is no option to attend an in-person course virtually. The course is not recorded so registrants will not receive a recording after the event. You must take the course on site at the specified time.
SPIE has a broad portfolio of online courses. These courses are versions of our live courses, taught by the same experts, but accessible at a time and place that work for you. But not all of our courses at conferences are available in this format.
To see the current list of online offerings and to get more information, visit SPIE Online Courses.
Yes, SPIE awards digital badges and certificates to participants who attend in-person courses at events. Certificates will be sent via email to attendees approximately six weeks after the conference has ended.
To receive these digital credentials, you must:
More information about digital credentials can be found at SPIE Badges and Certificates.
If you have more questions about these courses, please contact courses@spie.org for assistance.