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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."
using the same words, i made a much better headline.
"blurry vision math to impact deep crack problem"
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.
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.
How did this get a -1 rating? It should be modded informative or at least funny.
The early Hubble pictures suffered from optical distortion due to a miscalculation on what the shape of the mirror would be in obit, and NASA also fixed that problem using digital image filtering techniques to reconstruct a clear image. The key was that they had a precise model of the distortion and that it was invertible.
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.
Scientists will also use Photoshop to remove any zits, butt dimples, and eyebags the comet may be suffering from.
Math in space you say? What will they think of next?!
Deconvolution has been around for many decades.
Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot. Dude.
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
Tilt your head to the side and Squint a bit!
liqbase
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
The solution to my blurry vision problem is to keep the number of vodka-sodas in the single digits.
Damn I love coding loaded: Best. Comments. Ever.
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.
--
make install -not war
http://www.cs.brown.edu/exploratories/freeSoftware /repository/edu/brown/cs/exploratories/applets/con volution/convolution_guide.html
"The key operation we perform, both in the theoretical development and in the implementation of filtering, is convolution. This applet allows students to understand the process of convolution. First they create a signal and a filter function to convolve. Then, they place the filter function when they see the product function of the two original signals. In a final graph below, they build up the convolution, seeing the area under the product curve correspond to the value of the convolution at that point.
This applet is useful in understanding both how convolution works and what the effects are of specific signals being convolved together."
Deconvolution.
FTFA: The team will use a process, called deconvolution, to remedy the situation. Deconvolution is widely used in image processing and involves the reversal of the distortion created by the faulty lens of a camera or other optical devices, like a telescope or microscope.
If NASA were smart and hired poets, they would just look at the blurry images and say, "Interesting".
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
yeah. but they never got a very good set of kernels. because of the nature of the flaw(s), the psfs varied across the image and didn't do so continuously. they got part of the way there, but it was never even close. if only there had been a decent test pattern set lying around in space.
actually it wasn't just NASA engineers. they had an open call for help, and alot of people worked on the problem. which was very cool.
All right, I know I shouldn't be replying to flamebait but here goes.
e w/motiondeblur.html/
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/n
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.
How does this math work? All the article really tells me is that its math.
They also claim "deconvolution" can improve the resolution of a good telescope. Why? Wheres the extra data come from?
what the heck is this?
Why stick up for big business?
Years ago I tried to warn people that Tempel 1 was an alien monitoring post, and that it we needed to study it to discover their origins so we could be vigilant for their return. I was locked up for years. Now that I've escaped I find that they're smashing a rocket into it! While this at least proves I wasn't crazy, it's not going to help anything. Any civilization that has the technology to maintain a link to an outpost in a remote star system without it being detected by civilian scientists probably has the ability to defend itself against what it would probably perceive as aggression. While I'd like to believe that their advances have made them peaceful and even merciful, recent events on Earth suggest that the best we can hope for is millenia of enslavement.
There's no failure quite as dissatisfying as a complete and total solution to the wrong problem.
"The table-sized, 820-pound (372-kilogram) impactor is scheduled to smash into the comet's nucleus at 23,000 mph (37,000 kilometers) per hour"
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
enhance...enhance...
"We will alter images to make them clear"
-NASA
My answer: no WAY! Really?
After spending the millions and waiting for years, isnt it a LITTLE apparent that work will be done on images to make them clear? Does it require a press conference to announce the very apparent?
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
They're always able to make blurry photographs sharp, and it only takes about 10 seconds...
-- Andyvan
Oh give it up. This is so OLD. I've seen this "picture enhancement" being used in the movies all the time. You know, when there's this blurry picture and then suddenly it's "enhanced" and is crystal-clear?
Or on that Alias documentary where the CIA didn't have an audio feed so they had this program that would decipher words by lip reading at this obscene angle from a camera on the ceiling?? This stuff is so easy these days...
You'd think NASA would have this down pat... Maybe it's the budget cuts...
I found that if you take the film out of the camera after the picture is taken, and then either blow on it or flop the picture back and forth irt will make it develop far quicker and much clearer.
Maybe we could get some of the aliens from area 51 to hitchhike onboard and take care of that for us!
Like arts? Like cheesy little Indie mags? Check out www.artwerkmag.com, and don't laugh at the bad coding please.
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How did this get a -1 rating? It should be modded informative or at least funny.
<<<
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
1000 SlashDot sigs
PS: As others pointed out, deconvolution (which is the process used here) is not a new concept. Far from it, in fact.
Will NASA be allowed to use a calculator to solve the math problem?
You can try this at home with the Gimp: Refocus.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
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...
\u262D = \u5350
You know in films when they get a really burry satellite image, and some hero guy goes "can we enhaance thaaat?". So some geek clicks a button and it goes a lot sharper, and you're thinking, "if only that worked in real life". Well it does and you can try it yourself. Here is some free software that allows you to have a play and "enhance" all those blurry pics you have lying around.
I've tried this myself and it works quite well. I tried it on a picture I took of the moon with a 400mm lens and it made quite an impressive difference.
Is the idea of finding math. :) I love the article summary that makes it sound like NASA just sort of lobbed the thing into space, found it had blurry vision, and started looking an old drawer in the corner of the lab: "History. Nope, not helpful. Biology? Nope, no use. Psychology? We'd better send that one to the public relations dept. Math. Hey, that might be a good idea..."
That is not math. It is digital signal processing. Math is about proofs of theorems. Digital signal processing is what the name describes ;) I hate it when they won't give credit for the field that really researches these problems.