Product Description

While most books on electro-optical systems concentrate on an individual subfield, this one presents an overview of the whole field, providing researchers with working knowledge of a number of cross-disciplinary areas. It includes essential information on how to build modern electro-optical instruments such as microscopes, cameras, optical inspection equipment, and spectrometers, and optical-related computer equipment.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #401622 in Books
• Published on: 2000-06-23
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 0668 pages

Review
"Hobbs provides a comprehensive overview on the design and construction of electro-optical systems." (Choice, Vol. 38, No. 8, April 2001)

"...scientists, engineers, and anyone else needing help building electro-optical systems will be well aided by this volume...extremely useful...for academic and special libraries supporting programs in electro-optical engineering..." (E-Streams, Vol. 4, No. 9)

Book Info
Provides a systematic and accessible presentation of the practical lore of electro-optical instrument design and construction. Its applicability ranges from experimental apparatus to CD players. For graduate students at all levels, scientists, and engineers. DLC: Electrooptical devices--Design and construction.

Customer Reviews

Useful, hard to come by lessons
I've had this book for around a month, and I've already been able to apply its lessons in the lab on several occasions. Hobbs has a way of anticipating the things that will trip you up ahead of time, allowing you to learn lessons the easy way instead of the hard way. Some of the stuff in here would probably have taken me a decade to realize on my own (i.e. how bad etaloning can be in a polarizing beam splitting cube.) He covers many topics in just enough detail to make we want to find out more.

[...]

Occasionally, Hobbs offers advice without making it obvious why you should follow it. Most of it can be cleared up by a careful rereading or consultation of references, but one would do well to avoid following advice without understanding it. Hobbs advocates "dead bug" circuit prototyping, but provides only the the vaguest description of how to do it (and one crummy picture). I googled the subject and found very little useful supplemental material, and I'm not sure how to research the topic further.

Overall, it's hard for me to imagine someone who works with optics who wouldn't benefit from carefully reading this book. A real gem.

Best buy for practical optics perston: Buiding Electro-Optical Systems: Making It All Work
Briefly speaking, everybody dealing seriiously with optical design, or even doing academic research, should keep this book on the desk all the time.

Excellent but sorely needs references!
This is an excellent how-to book. It's the Home Depot of optics. But the almost complete lack of references (at least in the edition I reviewed) is a HUGE disappointment. This general text could have been so much more useful with a few selected hooks into the specialized literature. I hope the author and publisher consider this seriously for future editions.