As far as I know, for the first time an image sensor workshop was organized by and at the ETH, Zurich in Switzerland. Tobi Delbruck, opened the workshop by indicating that one of the workshop goals was to give an overview of the state-of-the-art of image sensors in Switzerland. At the end of the workshop the conclusion could be that Tobi succeeded in reaching his target. Not that much new items or technologies were disclosed, but several good speakers reviewed their technology and/or their products.
The session before lunch could be headed as : “What can/did we learn from the human retina ?”. The first speaker taught us how to reverse engineer the human retina to get a better understanding about its functionality. Next a couple of talks illustrated what already is implemented in silicon based on the working principle of the human retina. Quite interesting to see how the human visual system is capable of transmitting and processing only useful information. Or the human visual system only becomes active if there is really some new information observed. In contradiction to that, the classical image sensors generate and deliver an incredible amount of redundant data and information. The classical silicon image sensors are absolutely not efficient in the generation and transmission of data. So here we still can learn a lot from mother nature.
An interesting lesson that could be learned after the morning session : even the most fanatic and academic researchers were complaining about the lack of marketing efforts to get their ideas, technologies, devices to the market.
The session after lunch and before the afternoon coffee break could be seen as a CSEM session. Four different speakers (still with or no longer with CSEM or even still with but will shortly leave CSEM) highlighted particular aspects of the CSEM’s projects. Nice talks, but most of them were already delivered at other conferences. So basically not that much new information was presented, at least not for the people in the audience that regularly attend imaging conferences and workshops.
The last session of the SIVS workshop was devoted to speakers that talked about products that came recently on the market. Some of the talks were illustrated by means of live demos. And that always works : “Seeing is Believing”. The workshop concluded with a short forum, a poster/demo session and a drink.
Conclusion : good overview of the imaging state-of-the-art in Switzerland, no groundbreaking technologies or ideas were disclosed, good atmosphere ! Thanks to Tobi and Shih-Chii for the organization.
Albert, 09-09-2011
Thanks for the informative blog Albert – accurate assessment of the workshop. Almost all the presentations and the list of participants are available too now at http://sivs2011.org. We have there a few ideas for improvement of any future workshop as well. Wish we could figure out better how to rile up the audience to provoke some more unguarded opinions.