Optical Measurements for (Automotive) Displays

Level: Intermediate Length: 4 hours Format: In-Person Lecture Intended Audience: Engineers, scientists, technicians, and managers who wish to learn more about optical measurements for high quality displays. Basic knowledge in optical measurements is assumed. Description: The move towards autonomous vehicles will be accompanied by increased use of interior displays of various form factors. The need to optimize visual ergonomics of such displays for outstanding user experience requires additional and new optical measurement techniques extending the current methodologies. Given the high standards of the automotive industry, such techniques, once developed and refined, can easily map to additional applications including e-signage, outdoor displays, the medical industry, and any high quality display application. This course provides an introduction to the fundamentals of optical measurements of displays including such parameters luminance, contrast ratio, color and grey scale. Temperature, ambient light, and component aging all affect the perceived image quality. Optical measurement system layouts and methods will be presented and compared, and the impact of such measurements as they relate to human factors such as visual perception will be discussed. All measurements and methods will be taught through a theoretical foundation moving then to a focus on practical applications of these results. Case studies will enable interactive discussions pertinent to the student since there are often more than one solution for any given application. Anyone faced with questions such as, “How can I evaluate the optical performance of displays for premium applications” or “What do my measurement results imply in terms of human perception and vision” will benefit from this course. Learning Outcomes: This course will enable you to: - explain optical measurements layouts and methods as they apply to premium products such as those found in display systems for autonomous vehicles - distinguish between values of data sheets and measurement results targeting applications - conduct measurements for parameters such as the gamma value and color unites and evaluate their impact on vision and perception - design white point calibration for displays - explain how optical lifetime and burn-in measurements are performed in practice - design the appropriate measurement set-up to measure ambient light reflections and discuss the perceived quality of displays - apply human factors (vision) to optical measurements to avoid “over-engineering” or producing low quality performance; using an understanding of parameters including luminance uniformity and the Contrast Sensitivity Function. Instructor(s): Karlheinz Blankenbach graduated in physics at the University of Ulm, Germany, where he also received his PhD in 1988. Until 1995, he was with AEG-MIS /subsidiary of DAIMLER-MERCEDES), Germany, developing display electronics, LCDs and software. A highlight was a 3D helmet mounted monitor for stereo endoscopy founded by BMBF. Karlheinz was appointed in 1995 as full professor at Pforzheim University, Germany, launching the University's Display Lab. His main R&D activities are on optical display measurements (mainly automotive, incl. LEDs) and display systems as well as display hard- and software resulting in many talks, papers (~200), and projects (governmental and industrial funded). Karlheinz is member of the SPIE’s Photonics West committee on “Advanced in Display Technologies” and vice chair of Society for Information Display’s subcommittee “AUTOMOTIVE/VEHICULAR DISPLAYS AND HMI TECHNOLOGIES”. Karlheinz has been a member of the board of the DFF (Displayforum) since 2001 and chairman from 2011 to 2020; he was appointed as honorary chairman in 2020. Karlheinz is also Chairman of the Electronic Displays Conference held every year in Nuremberg, Germany. Steffen Reichel studied electrical engineering at the University of Kaiserslautern, Germany and at Michigan State University, USA. He worked on his doctorate in the field of optical communications also at the University of Kaiserslautern. In 1999, he joined Lucent Technologies working on fiber optical communications, erbium-doped, and Raman amplifiers. From 2001 to 2016, he worked for SCHOTT on several fields of optics from imaging optics, fiber optics, waveguide optics, laser optics, illumination optics, optical measurements, and optical filters. He is Fellow of the SPIE, Senior Member of the IEEE, in 2013 he became honorary professor for optics and photonics at Darmstadt University of Applied Science, and since 2016 he is full time (chair) professor for metrology and photonics at Pforzheim University, Germany. He and his team won the SCHOTT innovation award 2016. He is author of 1 book, 3 book chapters, has about 80 publications, and has 22 granted or pending patents. Event: SPIE Photonics West 2023 Course Held: 29 January 2023