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Math to Crack Deep Impact Blurry Vision Problem

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the corrective-calculation dept.

starexplorer writes "NASA announced that they believe they have a solution for the Deep Impact mission's blurry vision problem: math. Although the craft will still snap blurry pictures of the Tempel-1 comet, mathmetical manipulation will help scientists clear up the images once they make their way back to Earth. A special report and viewing guide are also available at SPACE.com."

5 of 167 comments (clear)

  1. i know about this by Neotrantor · · Score: 4, Informative

    it's a process called deconvolution, right? I did this as a project for sophomore year astronomy... which i believe involved asking on slashdot about it.

    1. Re:i know about this by Karzz1 · · Score: 5, Informative

      For anyone really interested in the math at work here, check out this page.

      --
      Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
  2. Re:You're both right. by wass · · Score: 4, Informative

    No, the parent is correct. Before the COSTAR correctional optics package was launched to fix Hubble's spherical aberation problem, NASA engineers were able to digitally de-convolve the aberations out of the image. The digitally-manipulated results weren't as good as the ones COSTAR optics eventually offered, but they did help some initial observing runs.

    --

    make world, not war

  3. Re:Don't believe everything NASA spews by RaySnake · · Score: 5, Informative

    All right, I know I shouldn't be replying to flamebait but here goes.

    It is in fact possible to at least partially reconstruct blurry images as long as you have some idea about what kind of distortion or motion is causing your problems. In some cases you can get useable information without even knowing exactly what your problem was! Don't take my word for it, look up "blind deconvolution" in your favorite image processing textbook or just use google.

    If you're an IEEE member there is an interesting tutorial entitled "Image Deblurring: I Can See Clearly Now" by James Nagy and Dianne O'Leary. In addition to this a real world applications in motion deblurring can be seen here http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/CAVE/research/demos/ne w/motiondeblur.html/
    The problem may not be identical to NASA's problem but the mathematical deconvolution techniques are the same.

    I realize you just want some attention but a small sense of disbelief is in order since many new developments in the sciences are pretty indistinguishable from magic at first glance.

  4. In related news... by Lisandro · · Score: 4, Informative

    ... witty scientists have found out math can also be used to design stuff, balance your checkbook, convert inches to meters and other everyday problems unsolvable without its magic!

    PS: As others pointed out, deconvolution (which is the process used here) is not a new concept. Far from it, in fact.