Optic image
 

Background and motivation

The workshop will address the latest advances in information optics, information photonics, imaging sciences and engineering, display technologies and 3D displays, 3D image sensing, image-based information security, image recognition, biophotonics, and novel image sensors. It will be a forum for scientific interaction and collaboration between well-known scientists in the field and educational outreach to students.

The workshop has been running for 18 years, starting with the Euro-American Workshop on Optical Pattern Recognition in La Rochelle, 1994. It is a small workshop (typically limited to 30-35 talks, single session), with invited participants broadly from the area of information optics and photonics. Always there has been an emphasis on allowing time for interaction, collaboration, and networking in a friendly atmosphere. Participants stay together for lunch and social outings.

Well-known researchers in the fields of optical information processing and advanced imaging techniques regularly attend the conference from Europe, USA, Japan, and Korea, and find it a refreshing, relaxed, and very profitable meeting. Previous workshop locations include Barcelona (1997), Colmar (1999), Valencia (2001), Toledo (2006), Reykjavik (2007), Annecy (2008), Paris (2009), Helsinki (2010), Benicasim (2011), Quebec (2012) and Teneriffa (2013).

The workshop will consist of keynotes and invited talks (oral presentations are by invitation only). Regular submissions will be accepted as poster presentations on topics that include, but are not strictly limited to, those listed below.

The program will include a "poster pop" session during which each poster presenter will have the opportunity to introduce his/her poster for 5 minutes to the conference attendees. Each presenter (keynote, invited, poster) is invited to submit a short manuscript that will be published online.

Location

The 13th Workshop on Information Optics will be held during 7-11 July, 2014 in Neuchatel. Switzerland). Neuchatel lies in French speaking western part of Switzerland. The city of Neuchâtel was founded over 1,000 years ago on the shore of a vast, beautiful lake near the Jura Mountains, Neuchâtel is home to 32 Swiss heritage sites of national significance. Neuchâtel is the capital of the canton of Neuchâtel, situated in western Switzerland on the shores of Lake Neuchâtel. The city has 32,000 residents and the canton has 170,000; most are French speaking. The canton is in the centre of the Jura mountains and includes three distinct regions: the wine-growing region located along the lake, the Les Vallées region to the north, with the Ruz Valley and the Val de Travers at about 700m, and the Neuchâtel mountains (900m-1065m), a long valley that is home to La Chaux-de-Fonds, Le Locle and La Brévine. The canton of Neuchâtel is well known for its wines, absinthe, dairy farming, cattle breeding, horse breeding, watch-making, micro-technology and high-tech industries.

The city of Neuchâtel has been a students’ town for generations. It is home to some light industries, but the local schools and University are what has earned Neuchâtel an enviable academic reputation. The city has a good library system and enjoys frequent concerts, lectures and plays by prominent artists. Neuchâtel was founded over 1,000 years ago, when the castle from which the town gets its name (“New Castle”) was completed in 1011. The castle is well worth a visit, as is the “Old Town”, which is closed to vehicular traffic and is where most of Neuchâtel’s shops, restaurants and cafés are located.

The climate is mild, with a lengthy autumn. Snow is rare in the winter months in the city, but excellent alpine conditions are just a 20-minute bus ride away for those who enjoy snowboarding and skiing.

Best of all, Neuchâtel is ideally situated as a centre from which to visit other places of interest. Good roads and excellent train service connect the city to Lausanne and Geneva to the west, and with Bâle, Berne and Zurich to the east. The French frontier lies 32 km (20 miles) away, the Black Forest of Germany is 120 km (75 miles) distant, and the Italian border is 160 km (100 miles) away.

View over the lake of Neuchatel