Completed Projects
Optical Subassemblies has designed and built a wide variety of lenses and optical systems for a diverse customer base including high tech instruments and children's toys.
Our customers range from large organizations such as NASA and Boeing to small companies with only a few employees. No matter how large or small, your project is important to us. The photo links below will take you to a description of some of the projects which Optical Subassemblies is proud to have been involved in.
Multiwavelength infrared camera for enhanced visibility landings
This is a two wavelength camera system which Optical Subassemblies designed and is building for MaxViz, Inc. , as part of their Enhanced Vision System product line for aircraft. The camera is designed to sit just in front of the cockpit and look forward. It has a thermal imaging system for enhanced viewing through fog, and a short wave infrared camera shown extending downward, and which is optimised to view the lights on the sides of runways. Both cameras share a common front element which is shown in this photograph. The MaxViz web site has very nice video clips which clearly demonstrate the infrared camera advantages to pilots, both in the air and on the ground.
Relay and collection lenses
 Optical Subassemblies has designed and built a number of relay and collection lenses for such diverse tasks as relaying LCD projector lens images in flight simulator target projectors, to the 12 pound lenses shown above which are used in a medical imaging application. If your application uses an unusual format camera, has wavelength or collection efficiency requirements which cannot be met with off-the-shelf optics, then custom designed and manufactured lenses may represent a viable alternative. You can at least be assured that the critical lens in your system will not go out of production.
Variable magnification beam expander
Optical Subassemblies designed and builds this variable magnification beam expander for an internationally known manufacturer of semiconductor processing equipment. Not shown is the printed circuit board with its dual microprocessor controller which drives the two motors shown in the photo.
The Jack, Will and Rob Center
Once in a while you get a project, which is truly out of the ordinary, and from which you get a true feeling of accomplishment. A couple of years ago, 3 young boys were killed in a floatplane accident. Their mother took it upon herself to spear head an effort to build a youth center in their memory. Each of the boys has a plaque on the wall with their name, birthday and a brief phrase describing their personality or spirit. She also had the idea some kind of optical system which would project a beam of light from the sun that would cross over each of their names on their birthday. This turned out to be a bit more complicated than expected because the birthdays were spread over a number of months, but in the end, a system was designed, built, and installed which projects an image of the sun onto the wall.
The basic optical system is that of a periscope comprised of a pair of objective lenses and a field lens in the intermediate focal plane. Two of the birthdays were in late winter, while the third was in summer. The solar positions were therefore very different and the input optics were designed around a mirror system to direct the sunlight into the objective lens, while a beamsplitter directed the low angle winter rays. A multiple mirror system was also used at the exit end to keep the over all size down such that it could be hidden inside of a small dome such as used for security cameras.
Video Based Foot Sizing System
Optical Subassemblies designed and built the optical system which fits in the base of this video foot sizing system. A customer puts their foot on a window which is just above the small glint on the lower part of the system, where it is illuminated about the periphery by an array of infrared LED's. The foot is then viewed from beneath by an upwards looking CCD camera and the image is captured with a frame grabber. Machine vision algorithms then calculate the length, width and make an estimate of the arch height which are then printed on a small ticket for the customer to keep. Nine of these systems were built and installed in the Manhattan NikeTown.
US Patent No. 06,289,107
Edge Blender for Multiple Projector Systems
Optical Subassemblies designed The Edge Blender for Pacific Staging Company in Phoenix, which specializes in large scale, multimedia productions such as Cisco Systems annual shareholder meeting. Such productions involve the use of a number of high power LCD projectors arranged side by side, each of which projects a segment of the overall scene. The alignment of images with sharply defined edges has been extremely difficult at best, so Optical Subassemblies worked with Pacific Staging to develop an attachment which can be used with existing projectors and projection lenses to produce an image with soft edges. The resulting soft images can more easily be merged into a single seamless image such as that of the cacti shown on this page, which is the result of two images being merged side by side.
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