VIS-201 · Embedded Vision · Advanced
ISP Tuning & Autofocus — full syllabus
The image signal processor pipeline and the control loops on top of it: exposure, white balance and focus.
Duration3 full days in person · 6 half-days online
Cohortmax 14 in person · 20 online
Pricefrom SAR 9,000 in person · local pricing per city
Delivery35% principles · 20% guided investigation · 45% engineering studio
Who this course is for
Imaging and vision engineers who own image quality on a camera product and must tune the ISP and its control loops with objective evidence rather than by eye.
Prerequisites
- Image fundamentals: exposure, analog/digital gain, noise sources
- Scripting (Python) for metrics and plots
- Access to raw captures — a camera on the bench or the supplied raw set
Course outline
Day 1 — Inside the ISP
- Image formation and why raw is the only honest starting point
- Pipeline stages: black level, lens shading, demosaic, denoise, sharpen, colour correction, gamma
- Analog vs digital gain; shot noise vs read noise and where each dominates
- Dynamic range, clipping and the trade the AE loop is actually making
- Designing a repeatable capture rig: fixed scene, fixed light, controlled motion
Day 2 — Exposure and colour control loops
- Auto-exposure metering, convergence behaviour and overshoot
- Flicker and anti-banding under mains lighting
- Auto white balance: grey-world assumptions and how real scenes break them
- Control-loop stability, step response and hysteresis
- Test charts and objective metrics: SNR, MTF proxies, delta-E; experimental confounders that invalidate a run
Day 3 — Autofocus from optics to control loop
- Thin-lens defocus, depth of field and what a focus metric measures
- Contrast-detect AF: metric choice, directional sweeps, peak search and hysteresis
- VCM actuators: linearity, settling, temperature effects and per-camera variation
- Per-camera AF calibration and setpoint storage
- Failure isolation: optics vs actuator vs calibration data vs algorithm
Hands-on labs
- Lab: Build a repeatable capture setup, sweep exposure and analog gain, and plot SNR and noise curves that separate shot from read noise
- Lab: Compare denoise and sharpen settings on chart captures using objective metrics plus controlled crops; document the noise/sharpness trade you chose and why
- Lab: Tune AE and AWB on a changing scene: record convergence traces, find the stability boundary and set hysteresis that holds it
- Lab: Run directional VCM sweeps, compute focus curves, quantify hysteresis and repeatability, and select per-position setpoints
Capstone project
Produce a defensible ISP tuning profile and AF calibration for a low-light or motion-constrained camera: raw/settings manifest, metric plots for every chosen parameter, per-position focus setpoints with repeatability and hysteresis numbers, and a failure-isolation report covering one seeded optics/actuator/algorithm fault.
What you leave with
- An experimental ISP-tuning method: hypothesis, sweep, metric, decision
- Objective image-quality metrics you can run on any chart capture
- AE/AWB convergence behaviour and the hysteresis settings that stabilise it
- A per-camera VCM/AF calibration procedure with repeatability evidence
Upcoming dates
| Dates | Where | Seats | Early bird | Regular | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 Oct – 27 Oct 20263 full days | RiyadhIn person · KAFD Conference Centre | 9 of 14 | — | SAR 9,000 | |
| 1 Nov – 3 Nov 20263 full days | Kuwait CityIn person · Al Hamra Tower | 4 of 14 | — | KWD 740 | |
| 8 Nov – 10 Nov 20263 full days | MuscatIn person · Knowledge Oasis Muscat | 9 of 14 | OMR 830until 9 Oct | ||
| 8 Nov – 15 Nov 20266 half-days | Gulf bandLive online · 09:00–13:00 GMT+3 | 9 of 20 | US$1,580until 9 Oct | ||
| 9 Nov – 11 Nov 20263 full days | OttawaIn person · Kanata North Tech Park | 4 of 14 | CAD 2,930until 10 Oct | ||
| 16 Nov – 18 Nov 20263 full days | TorontoIn person · MaRS Discovery District | 9 of 14 | CAD 2,930until 17 Oct | ||
| 16 Nov – 23 Nov 20266 half-days | Europe bandLive online · 09:00–13:00 CET | 14 of 20 | US$1,580until 17 Oct | ||
| 16 Nov – 23 Nov 20266 half-days | Americas bandLive online · 13:00–17:00 ET | 3 of 20 | US$1,580until 17 Oct | ||
| 23 Nov – 25 Nov 20263 full days | LondonIn person · Shoreditch Works | 4 of 14 | GBP 1,680until 24 Oct | ||
| 23 Nov – 25 Nov 20263 full days | BerlinIn person · Factory Görlitzer Park | 9 of 14 | EUR 1,990until 24 Oct |
Book a seat, or bring this course to your team
Seats can be reserved online; private delivery runs on-site or live online, adapted to your stack.
Questions about fit or prerequisites? Email hello@kernelsystems.academy. To save this syllabus, print this page to PDF from your browser.