Imaging

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

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Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Silicon Wafer-Scale Substrate for Microshutters and Detector Arrays
The silicon substrate carrier was created so that a large-area array (in this case 62,000+ elements of a microshutter array) and a variety of discrete passive and active devices could be mounted on a single board, similar to a printed circuit board. However, the density and...
Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
Robot Vision Library
The JPL Robot Vision Library (JPLV) provides real-time robot vision algorithms for developers who are not vision specialists. The package includes algorithms for stereo ranging, visual odometry and unsurveyed camera calibration, and has unique support for very wide-angle lenses (as used on the Mars Exploration Rover HazCams)....
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Synthetic Foveal imaging Technology (SyFT) is an emerging discipline of image capture and image-data processing that offers the prospect of greatly increased capabilities for real-time processing of large,...
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Briefs: Imaging
An improved type of starting materials for the fabrication of silicon-based imaging integrated circuits that include back-illuminated photodetectors has been conceived, and a process for...
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Briefs: Photonics/Optics
An established method of room-temperature interferometric null testing of mirrors having simple shapes (e.g., flat, spherical, or spheroidal) has been augmented to enable measurement of...
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Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
The crew activity analyzer (CAA) is a system of electronic hardware and software for automatically identifying patterns of group activity among crew members working together in an office, cockpit, workshop, laboratory, or...
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Briefs: Imaging
Delivering Images for Mars Rover Science Planning
A methodology has been developed for delivering, via the Internet, images transmitted to Earth from cameras on the Mars Explorer Rovers, the Phoenix Mars Lander, the Mars Science Laboratory, and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft. The images in question are used by geographically dispersed...
Briefs: Imaging
Range Imaging Without Moving Parts
Range-imaging instruments of a type now under development are intended to generate the equivalent of three-dimensional images from measurements of the round-trip times of flight of laser pulses along known directions. These instruments could also provide information on characteristics of targets, including...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Advanced Land Imager Assessment System
The Advanced Land Imager Assessment System (ALIAS) supports radiometric and geometric image processing for the Advanced Land Imager (ALI) instrument onboard NASA’s Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite. ALIAS consists of two processing subsystems for radiometric and geometric processing of the ALI’s...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
The world’s first silicon-based complementary metal oxide/semi-conductor (CMOS) integrated-circuit voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) operating in a frequency range around 324 GHz...
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Briefs: Software
An alternative approach has been devised for encoding image data in compliance with JPEG 2000, the most recent still-image data- compression standard of the Joint Photographic Experts Group....
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Briefs: Imaging
Hard-X-Ray/Soft-γ-Ray Imaging Sensor Assembly for Astronomy
An improved sensor assembly has been developed for astronomical imaging at photon energies ranging from 1 to 100 keV. The assembly includes a thallium-doped cesium iodide scintillator divided into pixels and coupled to an array of high-gain avalanche photodiodes (APDs). Optionally, the...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Hyperspectral Fluorescence and Reflectance Imaging Instrument
The system is a single hyperspectral imaging instrument that has the unique capability to acquire both fluorescence and reflectance high-spatial-resolution data that is inherently spatially and spectrally registered. Potential uses of this instrument include plant stress monitoring,...
Briefs: Software
Automated Camera Array Fine Calibration
Using aerial imagery, the JPL FineCalibration (JPL FineCal) software automatically tunes a set of existing CAHVOR camera models for an array of cameras. The software finds matching features in the overlap region between images from adjacent cameras, and uses these features to refine the camera models. It is...
Briefs: Imaging
Automatic Rock Detection and Mapping from HiRISE Imagery
This system includes a C-code software program and a set of MATLAB software tools for statistical analysis and rock distribution mapping. The major functions include rock detection and rock detection validation. The rock detection code has been evolved into a production tool that can be used...
Briefs: Imaging
A hand-held instrument that would include an ultrasonic camera has been proposed as an efficient means of reading matrix symbols. The proposed instrument could be operated without...
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Briefs: Imaging
A metrology system that contains no moving parts simultaneously measures the bearings and ranges of multiple reflective targets in its vicinity, enabling determination of the...
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Briefs: Imaging
A battery-powered, pen-sized, portable instrument for measuring molecular fluorescence spectra of chemical and biological samples in the field has been proposed. Molecular fluorescence...
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Briefs: Photonics/Optics
An architecture for back-illuminated complementary metal oxide/semiconductor (CMOS) and charge-coupled-device (CCD) ultraviolet/visible/near infrared-light image sensors, and a method...
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Briefs: Photonics/Optics
A compact, high-resolution, two-dimensional excitation-emission matrix fluorometer (EEMF) has been designed and built specifically for use in identifying and measuring the...
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Briefs: Photonics/Optics
Phase Sensor for Aligning a Segmented Telescope Mirror
A phase sensor has been developed for use in aligning a segmented telescope mirror to within a fraction of a wavelength in piston. (As used here, "piston" signifies displacement of a mirror segment along the optical axis of the telescope.) Such precise alignment is necessary in order to realize...
Briefs: Imaging
The NASA Ames hyperwall is a display system designed to facilitate the visualization of sets of multivariate and multidimensional data like those generated in complex engineering and...
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Briefs: Imaging
N-Type d Doping of High-Purity Silicon Imaging Arrays
A process for n-type (electron-donor) delta (d) doping has shown promise as a means of modifying back-illuminated image detectors made from n-doped high-purity silicon to enable them to detect high-energy photons (ultraviolet and x-rays) and low-energy charged particles (electrons and ions)....
Briefs: Imaging
A hyperspectral imaging system of high spectral and spatial resolution that incorporates several innovative features has been developed to incorporate a focal-plane scanner (U.S. Patent 6,166,373). This...
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Briefs: Sensors/Data Acquisition
Flight-control and navigation systems inspired by the structure and function of the visual system and brain of insects have been proposed for a class of developmental miniature robotic...
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Briefs: Imaging
Artificial neural networks that would utilize the cascade error projection (CEP) algorithm have been proposed as means of autonomous, real-time, adaptive color segmentation of images that...
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Briefs: Imaging
A new software equipped with novel image processing algorithms and graphical-user-interface (GUI) tools has been designed for automated analysis and processing of...
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Briefs: Photonics/Optics
Theodolite With CCD Camera for Safe Measurement of Laser-Beam Pointing
The simple addition of a charge-coupled-device (CCD) camera to a theodolite makes it safe to measure the pointing direction of a laser beam. The present state of the art requires this to be a custom addition because theodolites are manufactured without CCD cameras as standard or...
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
A portable instrument denoted a phase-retrieval camera (PRC) is designed to enable the testing of large, lightweight optics in the presence of vibrations and atmospheric turbulence. The development of...
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