A method of superplastically forming a workpiece comprises placing the workpiece in a die and heating the workpiece to a temperature at which the workpiece is superplastically formable. The controller controls emitter intensity, identifies photons detected by the photon detector as belonging to a specific optical waveguide of the plurality of optical waveguides, counts the detected photons, and identifies respective optical waveguides receiving each counted photon. The method includes operating the network in first and second modes of operation.