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Math to Crack Deep Impact Blurry Vision Problem
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."
I'm not sure if it was a photoshop plugin or a standalone filter, but the filter was able to derive sharp pictures from the bokeh of photographs.
Essentially, it calculated the ring of blur and interpolated the data and was able to resolve out-of-focus areas. The sample photos were either of gorillas or pandas. I'm sure someone will have a link.
Very space opera.
Deconvolution has been around for many decades.
Why don't we have adaptive image processing "glasses"? Can't some human vision problems be corrected by preprocessing an image, to "antidistort" it? The inverse distortion from the vision defect would return the image to "normal". Such a device could be recalibrated with test targets, so a wearer wouldn't need to consume valuable optometrist time for revised prescriptions. With some work, they could become light enough that they'd rival lenses, or even surpass them in some real coke-bottle cases. And we'd have a huger market for info display goggles.
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make install -not war
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How did this get a -1 rating? It should be modded informative or at least funny.
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I once moved my mouse a bit and gave a - rather than a +. SH. The metamoderators seem to have taken care of it both times.
Gotta be careful about that. There are metamoderators who label any negative mod as 'unfair'. I went troll bashing with my mod points a couple of times. Lost all my karma and didn't get mod points for months.
Karma bonus=off
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The problem is, to use math to
a) balance your checkbook, you sort of have to know how much was in your account to start with, and how much you spent or have left;
b) convert inches to meters, you have to have some idea of how many inches you want to convert, as well as remember the conversion factor.
Now when you're taking a picture of your mom, and it turns out blurry, you can use any mathematical process to alter the image to your liking, and you will stop when the image SUBJECTIVELY looks good to you - yeah, hey, that's mom alright, nice and sharp. You already know what she's supposed to look like.
But here we are taking a "picture" of something that NO ONE has ever seen before. So who the heck gets to decide what it's "supposed" to look like when they "sharpen" the image, and why should we believe their "best guess"?
Garbage in - garbage out, no matter how much deconvolution you want to do.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
NASA does have an on-staff poet. http://www.laurieanderson.com/
Jeremy
First of all, blurring is not a fully reversible process. If you convolute two signals, the smoothness of the convolution is essentially the smoothness of the smoothest signal ( can you say that rapidly ? ). Smoothing means convoluting with a smooth kernel, for exemple a gaussian (gaussian blurring). If you deconvolute it you will sharpen the image but keep the smoothness so information IS lost.
Now it can give good results... the most common deconvulting filter is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiener_filter>
Wiener filtering</a> but I suspect they can come up with some more efficient non linear filter.
Now the question is, if deblurring can be performed with deconvolution, how can my brain not learn to do it ! After all, my eyes are just unfocused so the compensation created by my lenses could be performed by my brain...
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