This part of IEC 62496 specifies the test method to decide whether to pass or fail an optical circuit board using direct illumination by a light. The input ports are directly illuminated and the optical intensity from the output ports of the optical circuit board is monitored using an area image sensor. Excess optical losses are the calculated from total detected intensities of light from a sample to be measured and from a control sample. This method is used to illuminate uniformly the input port of the optical circuit board (OCB) with a larger area than the core area, obtain the radiance of an area image from the corresponding output port of the OCB using an area image sensor, and evaluate whether to pass or fail using the radiance obtained compared to that of a control sample.

The advantage of this test method is that the alignment procedure between a launch fibre and the OCB is not necessary.