January 2002 Meeting

 

Tour of Surface Optics Corporation

"Theory and measurement of bidirectional reflectance for signature analysis."
Dr. Jim Jafola, President of Surface Optics Corporation
http://www.surfaceoptics.com

 

The application of advanced low observable treatments to ground vehicles has led to a requirement for a better understanding of effects of light scattering from surfaces. Measurements of the Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF) fully describe the angular scattering properties of materials, and these may be used in signature simulations to quantitatively characterize the optical effects of surface treatments on targets. This talk will review the theoretical and experimental techniques for characterizing the BRDF of surfaces and examines some of the popular parameterized BRDF representations that are used in signature calculations.

SPEAKER: Jim Jafolla, President, Surface Optics Corporation. http://www.surfaceoptics.com
Dr. Jafolla is President of Surface Optics Corporation and is working on the design, fabrication, and evaluation of materials for visual and IR signature control. He is developing models for predicting the optical performance of paint coatings, codes for optical constant determination from reflectance and transmittance measurements, and codes for evaluating the resulting platform signature with respect to various threat sensors. In addition, he is involved in developing techniques for multispectral signature suppression. This involves determining coating optical requirements and coating design specifications. The coating designs included pigmented paints, multilayer stacks, and three-dimensional surface structures. Previously, Dr. Jafolla worked on projects in a number of areas including the analytical prediction of the bidirectional reflectance of paint coatings, RCS predictions from complex shapes, IR signature prediction, radiative transfer through cloudy atmospheres, and sensor performance evaluation models. He is the principle author of the Coatings Reflectance Engineering Evaluation Program (CREEP) and the Surveillance Systems Evaluation Model (SURSEM). Currently Dr. Jafolla is involved in the development and validation of the Scattering Coatings Computer Aided Design (ScatCad) tool for advanced design and evaluation of signature control materials and surfaces.

Review of January 2002 OSSD Meeting
By Dick Kessler

On Thursday January 17, more than twenty OSSD members and four SID (Society for Information Display http://www.sid.org) members met at Surface Optics in Rancho Bernardo for pizza and a presentation on 'bidirectional reflectance for signature analysis'.

Dr. Jim Jaffola, Mike Beecroft and Jeff Stokes gave an excellent presentation on their specialty: theory of bidirectional reflectance; measurement and modeling. Surface Optics was formed 25 years ago and has been devoted to surface optical issues ever since.

Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF) is ideal for defense applications from a signature standpoint, but is also vitally important to recreating the most realistic animation images for Hollywood. It is also a key tool for paint analysis (Surface Optics has characterized all commercial paints in the US as well as the Royal Blue of Her Majesty's royal aircraft). Their expertise has extended to developing surface coatings for their customers as well as bringing to market two measurement instruments and commercializing software for reflectance analysis. All of which is detailed at http://www.surfaceoptics.com .

We enjoyed the lab and production facility tour, which included the coatings facilities, new laser based measurement lab, and a demonstration of the handheld measurement instrument based on a new micro Bolometer.

As you would expect, the talk and tour generated so many questions that we finally left late at around 9:30 PM.

A great evening thanks to Surface Optics for their sponsorship and to Jim Jaffola and all the rest of the Surface Optics team we met.