Lucky and privileged. That’s how I’ve always felt about working in imaging as part of a dedicated, insightful community with amazing projects. This past year has been no exception. Very recently it was announced that the Hubble telescope has imaged water vapour plumes being ejected from Jupiter’s moon Europa – a significant lead in the search for extraterrestrial life. Closer to home, the proliferation of cameras in the world continues to expose both injustice and happiness where it exists and record events that change peoples lives in ways that we could not have imagined.
The Imaging Science Journal has completed its first year after successfully moving to eight issues per year and using the internet as its primary form of delivery (with both html and PDF versions of papers available). We have published more material during this year than any other in history of the journal and submissions remain healthy from around the world. We are proud to continue to serve the science and engineering communities in this manner. The move to eight issues and online delivery was seamless due to the continued support of our publishers, Maney, and the dedication of the volunteer staff that work on the journal. As a reminder, all RPS members and subscribers enjoy online access to all issues of the Journal dating back to 2004 and also to those papers appearing online as Advance Articles for future issues. Institutional subscribers have the option to receive print and online versions or online access alone, whereas for members a printed version of the journal is still available for a small additional cost – please contact The Royal Photographic Society’s membership department.
Some other notable developments will take effect in 2014. The launch in December 2013 of the Maney Online platform, integrating the Journal’s webpage and online content, will provide a range of additional functions, including intelligent searching, to enhance the visibility of the content (visit www.maneyonline.com/ims). We are also adapting a new page design for research papers.
The promotion of imaging science and engineering has always been a core component of the society’s mission in parallel with its arts focused work. The Imaging Science Group (ISG) continues to lead this work and in December held another successful Good Picture symposium with talks covering subjects as diverse as ‘Are you getting good value from all of your pixels?’, by Dr Anthony Kaye, ASIS, FRPS, to ‘Imaging the Universe’, by Robert Massey, Royal Astronomical Society. The ISG has further collaborated with the Royal Astronomical Society to organize a two day joint meeting, Astroimaging 2014, which is being held on 17–18 February 2014 at The Royal Astronomical Society’s headquarters in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The first day is organised by The RPS and will major on photography and digital imaging in astronomy. The second day, organised by the RAS, will include large format space imaging, e.g. recent space telescope missions such as the Herschel Space Observatory and the Hubble Space Telescope.
At the Society level, The RPS Imaging Scientist Qualifications provide a structure leading to professional qualifications for engineers, scientists and technologists whose professional activities are concerned with quantitative or mechanic aspects of imaging systems or their applications. The relevant academic disciplines (chemistry, engineering, physics, etc.), imaging systems (silver, non-silver, electronic, etc.) and applications, are interpreted as widely as possible. Members who acquire an Imaging Scientist Qualification also receive a Society Distinction. Useful information concerning the qualifications may be found on both the RPS website, www.rps.org, and the ISG website, www.rps-isg.org.
Publication is a service to the scientific community and dissemination of ideas and work benefits the world at large. The ISJ wants to continue to keep publication free for authors so that the whole gamut of the imaging community, from the enthusiastic amateur working in their garage, through undergraduates publishing their first paper, to research groups from large multinationals, have equal access. Working closely with Maney we’ve managed to avoid page charges completely for articles printed in black and white (colour is of course free in the online version). This is only possible because we have volunteers that offer their services for free as Associate Editors and reviewers to assess every article sent to us.
The success of the Society relies on people getting involved and we have a richer and more vibrant imaging community by doing so. Please consider taking part in an RPS ISG event, applying for a qualification or becoming a reviewer or editor for the Journal. Resolution please.