Colleagues:

There’s a great opportunity for optomechanical engineers coming up next month in San Diego:

SPIE’s International Symposium on Optics and Photonics
August 22-25, 2011
San Diego Convention Center and Marriott Marina Hotel

We (The International Technical Group on Optomechanical Engineering) have a two-day conference on the 24th and 25th with 31 oral presentations and 6 poster presentations.  The topics cover the whole spectrum of optomechanics from materials through components and mounting to systems performance and applications.  Hot stuff.

We’ll have an evening meeting as well:  Tuesday, 800 to 1000 PM (check the conference program for the hotel room).  Our feature speaker will be Kent Weed of Lightworks Optics in Irvine, California.  He’ll discuss, among other things, LIghtwork’s challenges in a recent project to map the surface of the moon.  They’ve had some really interesting projects and this should be a fascinating gathering.  The meeting is free and open to the public.

If any of you have items you’d like to put before the Technical Group let me know and I’ll make sure you have a spot on the agenda.  Following the agenda items we’ll have our usual “Problems and Solutions Workshop,” which will last as long as your energy and the Hotel management allow.

Oh, I almost forgot, I’ll be giving my tutorial on the Optomechanical Constraint Equations,

Optomechanics and the Tolerancing of Instruments (or The Mechanics of Image Motion).
Tuesday, August 23, 2011, 830 AM to 500 PM
San Diego Convention Center

This is the in-depth explication of the theory and application of optomechanical influence coefficients in the mechanical design and analysis of optical instruments.  You may  register for the class through the SPIE web site:  http://spie.org.

There’ll be a massive three-day exhibit with all of our suppliers represented and Wednesday evening is the grand awards banquet… seemingly endless opportunities for socializing and networking with all the movers and shakers of the industry.

It’s going to be a great week and I hope to see you all there.

Al H.
7-20-11