Day 1 (three 90 minute sections, with two 15 minute breaks)

I. Introduction
• Purpose, history of EMVA 1288 standard
• Comparison with other standards, especially the ISO standards and the upcoming IEEE standards P2020 for automotive sensors and P4001 for hyperspectral imaging

II. Foundation Imaging and Image Sensors
• Radiometry of imaging; radiometric quantities
• Functional units of image sensors and digital cameras
• Inner photo effect; photon conversion in image sensors; noise sources
• Elementary processes in solid state imagers: optical losses, recombination, diffusion, and charge storage
• Causes and types of nonuniformity
• Dark current and its temperature dependency; temperature dependency of other sensor parameters

III. In-depth Foundation of the EMVA 1288 Standard
• “Black box” model for linear and non-linear cameras; system theoretical approach
• Characteristic curve and photon transfer curve
• Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for input and output signal
• Causes and types of spatial nonuniformity; separation into column, row and pixel variation; total signal-to-noise ratio
• Dark current and its temperature dependency; temperature dependency of other sensor parameters

Day 2 (three 90 minute sections, with two 15 minute breaks)

IV. Optimal EMVA 1288 Measurements and Measuring Conditions
• Mandatory and optional measurements
• Choice of analysis between linear model (Release 4 Linear) or general model (Release 4 General)
• Dark current measurements
• Irradiation series for sensitivity, noise, and linearity; light sources, irradiation variation, and irradiation without and with lens
• Measurement and analysis of nonuniformity
• Spectral measurements

V. Practical Exercises
• Performing EMVA 1288 measurements with available test equipment, software, and cameras

VI. Standardized EMVA 1288 Data Sheet
• Cover sheet
• One-page summary
• Main part with all EMVA 1288 measurements and graphs

Day 3 (three 90 minute sections, with two 15 minute breaks)

VII. Analysis of all Measuring Curves, Deviation from Ideal Behavior, Accuracy of Parameters
• Characteristic curve (sensitivity measurement); estimation of slope by cubic B-spline regression
• Photon transfer curve: a sensitive tool to analyze deficiencies
• Input SNR curve
• Problem of too low dark noise (influence of quantization noise)
• Derived parameters and their precision, accuracy and reliability: quantum efficiency, absolute sensitivity threshold, saturation capacity, maximum SNR, dynamic range (DR)
• Non-linearity
• Horizontal and vertical profiles to characterize nonuniformities and defect pixels in one representation
• Defect pixels: flexible characterization of defective pixels using logarithmic histograms
• Spectrogram method (Fourier transform to detect periodic nonuniformities)
• Dark current and its dependence on temperature
• Spectral sensitivity and color qualitative: measuring and evaluating the spectral sensitivity, characterization of color quality

VIII. Tests for Correctness of EMVA 1288 Measurements and Model
• Cumulative histogram
• Stability analysis
• Pixel correlation: is there any preprocessing (noise suppression etc.)?
• Dependency of PRNU on saturation
• Dependency of PRNU on wavelength of irradiation

IX. Application-oriented camera selection
• What do we need to know about the application?
• Which of the EMVA 1288 parameters are the most important given certain application conditions?

X. Outlook Further Development of the EMVA 1288 Standard (Release 4.1)
• Dependency of sensor sensitivity and nonuniformity on f-number;
• Spatial resolution of image sensors (PSF and MTF)
• Color quality