Over half a century of experience and tradition
Acreo AB, former Institute of Optical Research (IOF) was founded in 1955. One of its objectives was to evaluate the image quality of cameras and lenses for military applications in a way that was independent of NATO and the Warsaw pact, thus supporting the neutrality policy of Sweden.
Acreo has continued this tradition even for other image generating media. Since 1981 the evaluation of the image quality of displays is part of the activity. One of the first projects was to develop a camera system for evaluation display parameters for the industry, e.g. Ericsson.
The Acreo developed instrument was then used to measure the visual ergonomics of displays together with the institute for radiation protection "Statens Strålskyddsinstitut" (SSI). Acreo was appointed by Swedac to write a new measurement standard for displays. When the TCO labelling was extended to include visual ergonomics in TCO '95, IOF was one of the referral bodies and was then appointed to do more and more of the development for the measurement methods and requirements.
Acreo started a collaboration with Semko and the visual ergonomic part of TCO '99, TCO '03, TCO '05 and TCO '06 Media Displays, were developed jointly. At the moment Acreo is working on the update of TCO '03, which is expected to be ready in 2007.
Complementary studies for TCO Development have also been done e.g. how the reflexes from the frame of the display are experienced in office work in different environments. Furthermore, Acreo supports TCO Development and Semko in answering questions from display manufacturers, performs tests and investigations to set reasonable demands and methods for different visual ergonomic parameters.
Digital image and Video quality is a related subject that Acreo has been involved in for about 10 years. The work has consisted in the development of measurement methods and investigations into how viewers experience picture quality. Today the work targets on how to do on-line measurements of TV quality in broadband networks and also standardisation within the Video Quality Experts Group (VQEG).