Imaging

Access our comprehensive library of technical briefs on imaging, from engineering experts at NASA and major government, university, and commercial laboratories.

34
-1
330
30
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
Although smartphones and other consumer cameras are increasingly used for scientific applications, it's difficult to compare and combine data from different...
Feature Image
Briefs: Materials
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) uses magnetic fields and radio waves to create images of organs and tissues in the human body, helping doctors diagnose potential problems or diseases. Doctors use MRI to...
Feature Image
Briefs: Imaging
Different instruments are needed to study the interaction of contact surfaces at different length scales. Tribometers measure the coefficient of friction but they cannot...
Feature Image
Briefs: Imaging
Multi- and Wide-Band Single-Feed Patch Antenna
A novel patch antenna technology was developed that provides significant benefits to NASA satellite communication applications, offering a unique wide-band/multi-band operating capability. For other non-space applications, the antenna design also offers broadband capability with high gain for...
Briefs: Semiconductors & ICs
Antenna Near-Field Probe Station Scanner
Antenna characterization techniques are often expensive and time-consuming. NASA’s Glenn Research Center developed a highly versatile and automated system to perform characterization of single or multiple small circuit antennas, printed on-wafer or on other substrates, by measuring the antenna’s...
Briefs: Materials
A 3D-printed polymer-based foam structure was developed that responds to the force of a shock wave to act as a oneway switch, a long sought-after goal in shock research. The...
Feature Image
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
A breakthrough imaging technique developed by Cornell researchers shows promise in decontaminating water by yielding surprising and important information about catalyst particles that can't be...
Feature Image
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
Since 1998, almost 2,000 shoebox-sized satellites known as CubeSats have been launched into space. Due to their small frame and the fact that they can be made from off-the-shelf parts,...
Feature Image
Briefs: Sensors/Data Acquisition
When light gets scattered as it passes through a translucent material, the emerging pattern of “speckle” looks as random as static on a television screen with no signal. But it...
Feature Image
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Autonomous vehicles relying on light-based image sensors often struggle to see through blinding conditions such as fog. Sub-terahertz wavelengths, which are between microwave and...
Feature Image
Briefs: Automotive
Adversarial techniques were developed that can make objects “invisible” to image detection systems that use deep-learning algorithms. These techniques can also trick systems into...
Feature Image
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Automated Object Detection in an Image
Recent developments in machine vision have demonstrated remarkable improvements in the ability of computers to properly identify objects in a viewing field. Most of these advances rely on color-texture analyses that require target objects to possess one or more highly distinctive, local features that can be...
Briefs: Test & Measurement
Microfocus, Dual-Energy Imaging System Improves Contaminant Detection
Contamination of food with fragments of bone, metal, glass, or other foreign material is a major concern in the food industry. Current inspection technologies often miss very small fragments embedded in meat or other soft materials or lead to ambiguous results that require...
Briefs: Imaging
Visualizing Motion of Water Molecules for Liquid-Based Electronics
A high-resolution inelastic x-ray scattering technique was used to measure the strong bond involving a hydrogen atom sandwiched between two oxygen atoms. This hydrogen bond is a quantum-mechanical phenomenon responsible for various properties of water, including viscosity, that...
Briefs: Communications
It has been known since the early 1960s that hexagonal sampling is the optimal sampling approach for isotropically band-limited images, providing a 13.4% improvement in sampling efficiency over...
Feature Image
Briefs: Imaging
Until about 20 years ago, scientists relied on chemical fluorescent dyes to make biological molecules visible. To look inside cells, stain organelles, and perform other...
Feature Image
Briefs: Imaging
Researchers have created inexpensive, full-color, 2D and 3D holograms that are more realistic and brighter, and can be viewed at wider angles than current holograms.
Feature Image
Briefs: Imaging
Following severe trauma, patients may have tissue damage or open wounds that require reconstructive surgery using fasciocutaneous flaps. These flaps of tissue, which are taken from...
Feature Image
Briefs: Lighting
NASA Langley Research Center has developed a double-sided Si(Ge)/ Sapphire/III-Nitride hybrid structure. This technology uses both sides of a sapphire wafer to build device structures...
Feature Image
Briefs: Imaging
A robot is being developed that tracks facial movements to perform human tasks. The robot resembles large, squiggly arms holding tiny cameras. Sitting in a rolling office chair across from one of the arms, the robot's...
Feature Image
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
Scientists at the University of Sheffield have been working with HiPERCAM, a high-speed, multicolor camera, which is capable of taking more than 1,000 images per...
Feature Image
Briefs: Sensors/Data Acquisition
Accurately measuring semiconductor properties of materials in small volumes helps engineers determine the range of applications for which these materials may be suitable in the...
Feature Image
Briefs: Internet of Things
There's an entire world our eyes miss, hidden in the ranges of light wavelengths that human eyes can't see. But infrared cameras can pick up this light emitted as...
Feature Image
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
With the aim of bringing more human-like reasoning to autonomous vehicles, MIT researchers have created a system that uses only simple maps and visual data to enable driverless cars to...
Feature Image
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
3D Printing of Flexible Circuits
A process was developed for 3D printing that can be used to produce transparent and mechanically flexible electronic circuits. The electronics consist of a mesh of silver nanowires that can be printed in suspension and embedded in various flexible and transparent plastics (polymers). This technology can enable new...
Briefs: Test & Measurement
By capping liquids with graphene (an ultrathin sheet of pure carbon), researchers can easily image and analyze liquid interfaces and the surface of nanometer-scale objects...
Feature Image
Briefs: Materials
Graphene Flagship partner ICFO, based in Barcelona, Spain is developing graphene-based prototypes that aim to turn mobile phones into life saving devices. The first of these will allow...
Feature Image
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
A new learning system improves a robot’s ability to mold materials into target shapes and make predictions about interacting with solid objects and liquids. The system, known as a...
Feature Image
Briefs: Materials
An ingestible pill was developed that, upon reaching the stomach, quickly swells to the size of a soft, squishy ping-pong ball big enough to stay in the stomach for an extended...
Feature Image

Videos