Tech Briefs

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A comprehensive library of technical briefs from engineering experts at NASA and major government, university, and commercial laboratories covering all aspects of innovations in electronics, software, photonics, imaging, motion control, automation, sensors, test, materials, manufacturing, mechanical, and mechatronics.

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Briefs: Software
Automated Camera Calibration

Automated Camera Calibration (ACAL) is a computer program that automates the generation of calibration data for camera models used in machine vision systems. Machine vision camera models describe the mapping between points in threedimensional (3D) space in front of the camera and the corresponding points in...

Briefs: Software
Program Predicts Performance of Optical Parametric Oscillators

A computer program predicts the performances of solid-state lasers that operate at wavelengths from ultraviolet through mid-infrared and that comprise various combinations of stable and unstable resonators, optical parametric oscillators (OPOs), and sum-frequency generators (SFGs),...

Briefs: Software
Database of Properties of Meteors

A database of properties of meteors, and software that provides access to the database, are being developed as a contribution to continuing efforts to model the characteristics of meteors with increasing accuracy. Such modeling is necessary for evaluation of the risk of penetration of spacecraft by meteors. For...

Briefs: Software
SmaggIce Version 1.8

SmaggIce version 1.8 is a set of software tools for geometrical modeling of, and generation of grids that conform to, both clean and iced airfoils. A prior version (SmaggIce 1.2) was described in "Preparing and Analyzing Iced Airfoils" (LEW-17399), NASA Tech Briefs, Vol. 28, No. 8 (August 2004), page 32. Ice shapes,...

Briefs: Software
Processing TES Level-1B Data

TES L1B Subsystem is a computer program that performs several functions for the Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (TES). The term "L1B" (an abbreviation of "level 1B"), refers to data, specific to the TES, on radiometric calibrated spectral radiances and their corresponding noise equivalent spectral radiances...

Briefs: Software
Processing TES Level-2 Data

TES Level 2 Subsystem is a set of computer programs that performs functions complementary to those of the program summarized in the immediately preceding article. TES Level-2 data pertain to retrieved species (or temperature) profiles, and errors thereof. Geolocation, quality, and other data (e.g., surface...

Briefs: Software

A further modification has been made in the algorithm and implementing software reported in “Modified Recursive Hierarchical Segmentation of Data” (GSC-14681-1), NASA Tech...

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Briefs: Software
Using Heaps in Recursive Hierarchical Segmentation of Data

speed has been made in the algorithm and implementing software reported in "Modified Recursive Hierarchical Segmentation of Data" (GSC-14681-1), NASA Tech Briefs, Vol. 30, No. 6 (June 2006), page 51. That software performs recursive hierarchical segmentation of data having spatial...

Briefs: Software

MarsLS is a software tool for analyzing statistical dispersion of spacecraft-landing sites and displaying the results of its analyses. Originally intended for the Mars Explorer Rover...

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Briefs: Software

A computer program automates the process of selecting unbiased peer reviewers of research proposals submitted to NASA. Heretofore, such selection has been performed by manual searching of two...

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Briefs: Software
Array-Pattern-Match Compiler for Opportunistic Data Analysis

A computer program has been written to facilitate real-time sifting of scientific data as they are acquired to find data patterns deemed to warrant further analysis. The patterns in question are of a type denoted array patterns, which are specified by nested parenthetical expressions....

Briefs: Software
Pre-Processor for Compression of Multispectral Image Data

A computer program that preprocesses multispectral image data has been developed to provide the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission with a means of exploiting the additional correlation present in such data without appreciably increasing the complexity of compressing the data. When used...

Briefs: Software
Compressing Image Data While Limiting the Effects of Data Losses

ICER is computer software that can perform both lossless and lossy compression and decompression of gray-scaleimage data using discrete wavelet transforms. Designed for primary use in transmitting scientific image data from distant spacecraft to Earth, ICER incorporates an...

Briefs: Software

Flight Operations Analysis Tool (FLOAT) is a computer program that partly automates the process of assessing the benefits of planning spacecraft missions to incorporate various combinations of launch...

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Briefs: Software

In an improvement of the visual-targettracking software used aboard a mobile robot (rover) of the type used to explore the Martian surface, an affine-matching algorithm has been...

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Briefs: Software
Software for Simulating Air Traffic

Future Air Traffic Management Concepts Evaluation Tool (FACET) is a system of software for performing computational simulations for evaluating advanced concepts of advanced air-traffic management. FACET includes a program that generates a graphical user interface plus programs and databases that implement...

Briefs: Software
Automated Vectorization of Decision-Based Algorithms

Virtually all existing vectorization algorithms are designed to only analyze the numeric properties of an algorithm and distribute those elements across multiple processors. This advances the state of the practice because it is the only known system, at the time of this reporting, that takes...

Briefs: Software
Grayscale Optical Correlator Workbench

Grayscale Optical Correlator Workbench (GOCWB) is a computer program for use in automatic target recognition (ATR). GOCWB performs ATR with an accurate simulation of a hardware grayscale optical correlator (GOC). This simulation is performed to test filters that are created in GOCWB. Thus, GOCWB can be used...

Briefs: Sensors/Data Acquisition
“One-Stop Shopping” for Ocean Remote-Sensing and Model Data

OurOcean Portal 2.0 (http:// ourocean.jpl.nasa.gov) is a software system designed to enable users to easily gain access to ocean observation data, both remote-sensing and in-situ, configure and run an Ocean Model with observation data assimilated on a remote computer, and visualize...

Briefs: Software

The State Analysis Database Tool software establishes a productive environment for collaboration among software and system engineers engaged in the development of complex interacting systems. The tool embodies...

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Briefs: Software

Part of the Rover Analysis, Modeling and Simulation (ROAMS) software that synthesizes images of terrain has been augmented to make the images more realistic. [ROAMS was described in...

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Briefs: Software
Improving UDP/IP Transmission Without Increasing Congestion

Datagram Retransmission (DGR) is a computer program that, within certain limits, ensures the reception of each datagram transmitted under the User Datagram Protocol/Internet Protocol. [User Datagram Protocol (UDP) is considered unreliable because it does not involve a reliability-...

Briefs: Software
FORTRAN Versions of Reformulated HFGMC Codes

Several FORTRAN codes have been written to implement the reformulated version of the high-fidelity generalized method of cells (HFGMC). Various aspects of the HFGMC and its predecessors were described in several prior NASA Tech Briefs articles, the most recent being "HFGMC Enhancement of MAC/GMC"...

Briefs: Software
Program for Editing Spacecraft Command Sequences

Sequence Translator, Editor, and Expander Resource (STEER) is a computer program that facilitates construction of sequences and blocks of sequences (hereafter denoted generally as sequence products) for commanding a spacecraft. STEER also provides mechanisms for translating among various sequence...

Briefs: Software

software prototype of BEAM (Beaconbased Exception Analysis for Multimissions) and successfully tested its operation in flight onboard a NASA research aircraft. BEAM (see NASA Tech Briefs, Vol. 26, No....

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Briefs: Software
Mission Scenario Development Workbench

The Mission Scenario Development Workbench (MSDW) is a multidisciplinary performance analysis software tool for planning and optimizing space missions. It provides a number of new capabilities that are particularly useful for planning the surface activities on other planets. MSDW enables rapid planning of a...

Briefs: Software
Marsviewer

Marsviewer is a multi-platform application designed to aid in quality control, browsing, and analysis of original science product images (Experiment Data Records, or EDRs) and derived image data products (Reduced Data Records, or RDRs) returned by the Mars Explorer Rover (MER) mission. Marsviewer offers an abstraction of the products'...

Briefs: Software
Tool for Analysis and Reduction of Scientific Data

The Automated Virtual Laboratory Tool (AVLT) is designed to be an intelligent scientific analysis assistant (SAA) system, dedicated to facilitating analysis and reduction of data collected by spaceborne scientific instruments. Within the SAA, a variety of conventional and artificial-intelligence...

Briefs: Software
ASPEN Version 3.0

The Automated Scheduling and Planning Environment (ASPEN) computer program has been updated to version 3.0. ASPEN as a whole (up to version 2.0) has been summarized, and selected aspects of ASPEN have been discussed in several previous NASA Tech Briefs articles. Restated briefly, ASPEN is a modular, reconfigurable, application...

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