Cameras

Theodolites are a common instrument in the testing, alignment, and building of various systems ranging from a single optical component to an entire instrument. They provide a precise way to measure horizontal and vertical angles. They can be used to align multiple objects in a desired way...

Researchers from Northwestern University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have developed a nickel-size, curvilinear camera with a 3.5x optical zoom. Or, to put it simply, an eyeball camera. The lens and photodetectors are on flexible substrates. A hydraulic system then changes the shape of the substrates, allowing the...

Although less publicized than alcohol, driver fatigue is a major contributor to auto accidents in the U.S. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimates that 56,000 sleep-related road crashes occur annually in the U.S., resulting in 40,000 injuries and 1,550 fatalities. According to the...

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...

Until now, machine-based surface inspection methods have checked visual quality by means of direct or transmitted light in conjunction with a camera system. When it comes to the automated inspection of reflective and smooth surfaces, however, these methods involve problems. The resulting reflections need to be either...

Astronomers have woven NASA Hubble Space Telescope images of Saturn, its rings, and several of its moons into three movies. Each movie highlights unique times in the planet's 30-year waltz around the Sun. Hubble snapped only about a dozen images during each of these three events, so astronomers created software to extend the photos...

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...