Course map

This map keeps the complete six-month Release 3 route visible. All four phases are available, each milestone is deliberately scoped to 6–8 hours, and every milestone ends with evidence you can inspect.

Phase 1 — Engineering independence

Milestones 1–3 build the habits that make later image and model work legible: reading code, using a reproducible workbench, and proving a repair.

• M01 Code as a story — trace inputs, transformations, and outputs before running code. Available now.
• M02 Developer workbench — work safely with terminals, environments, Git, paths, JSON, and configuration. Available now.
• M03 Debugging, tests, and AI verification — reduce failures and independently verify AI-assisted changes. Available now.

Phase 2 — Visual computing

Milestones 4–6 make frames, arrays, and deterministic QC signals concrete before learned detection is introduced.

• M04 Pixels, arrays, shapes, and dtype — follow colour, axes, range, and memory behaviour. Available now.
• M05 Image and video pipelines — turn a clip into inspectable metadata and sampled-frame evidence. Available now.
• M06 Rebuild the CineQC baseline — calibrate deterministic artifact signals on controlled defects. Available now.

Phase 3 — Learned detection

Milestones 7–9 create a lawful benchmark, a reproducible baseline, and an honest comparison with heuristics.

• M07 Dataset, labels, splits, and leakage — freeze a source-aware benchmark. Available now.
• M08 PyTorch and transfer learning — train, resume, and reproduce a small baseline. Available now.
• M09 Temporal detector versus heuristics — compare learned and deterministic signals on equal terms. Available now.

Phase 4 — Product and proof

Milestones 10–12 turn evidence into a bounded CineQC service and a public account of what it can and cannot prove.

• M10 One semantic detector — choose a feasible semantic target by explicit criteria. Available now.
• M11 CineQC integration and operation — expose a local, observable service with fallbacks. Available now.
• M12 Public case study and competency dossier — publish a reproducible account without exposing the production layer. Available now.

Release 3 availability

Release 3 contains complete learning material for M01–M12 and nine field guides. The required route totals 82 hours; optional deeper reading remains outside each milestone's 6–8 hour budget.