Around 200 international experts discussed trends in optics and photonics at the ZEISS Symposium 'Optics in the Digital World.' The keynote speakers were Laura Waller from the University of California, Berkeley, Ingmar Posner from Oxford University and David Bohn from Microsoft. All three outlined the requirements to be met in the future by research. These are being shaped by increasing digitization and Big Data applications and are determining trends in optical technologies. These include computer-aided image processing, processing large datasets in optics, obtaining information from data, visualization for augmented and virtual reality scenarios (AR/VR) as well as computer vision and machine learning.
The Symposium in Oberkochen networked international scientists and leading representatives from industry. Meeting in the ZEISS Forum, the Symposium participants not only presented the current state of technology, but also identified and worked out where there is need for action in strategic research fields in the coming years. As future-oriented technologies, optics and photonics shape our society, science and culture. Other new important areas include communications, sensors, illumination and medical technology. Digitization enables the manufacture of microchips with ever-smaller structures and therefore more computing power with increasingly small dimensions. Another exciting field of innovation is immersive microscopy with the newly available VR/AR scenarios for digitized Big Data visualizations using VR headsets, data gloves and other devices. The Symposium served as a blueprint for the digital world of tomorrow, actively advancing light technologies.