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At least 523 records · Page 29
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1976

A study and evaluation of image analysis techniques applied to remotely sensed data

An analysis of phenomena causing nonlinearities in the transformation from Landsat multispectral scanner coordinates to ground coordinates is presented. Experimental results comparing rms errors at ground control points indicated a slight improvement when a nonlinear (8-parameter) transformation was used instead of an affine (6-parameter) transformation. Using a preliminary ground truth map of a test site in Alabama covering the Mobile Bay area and six Landsat images of the same scene, several classification methods were assessed. A methodology was developed for automatic change detection using classification/cluster maps. A coding scheme was employed for generation of change depiction maps indicating specific types of changes. Inter- and intraseasonal data of the Mobile Bay test area were compared to illustrate the method. A beginning was made in the study of data compression by applying a Karhunen-Loeve transform technique to a small section of the test data set. The second part of the report provides a formal documentation of the several programs developed for the analysis and assessments presented.

Atkinson, R. J.↗
NASA NTRS1984

The APL image processing laboratory

The present and proposed capabilities of the Central Image Processing Laboratory, which provides a powerful resource for the advancement of programs in missile technology, space science, oceanography, and biomedical image analysis, are discussed. The use of image digitizing, digital image processing, and digital image output permits a variety of functional capabilities, including: enhancement, pseudocolor, convolution, computer output microfilm, presentation graphics, animations, transforms, geometric corrections, and feature extractions. The hardware and software of the Image Processing Laboratory, consisting of digitizing and processing equipment, software packages, and display equipment, is described. Attention is given to applications for imaging systems, map geometric correction, raster movie display of Seasat ocean data, Seasat and Skylab scenes of Nantucket Island, Space Shuttle imaging radar, differential radiography, and a computerized tomographic scan of the brain.

Jenkins, J. O.↗
NASA NTRS1989

Robot acting on moving bodies (RAMBO): Preliminary results

A robot system called RAMBO is being developed. It is equipped with a camera, which, given a sequence of simple tasks, can perform these tasks on a moving object. RAMBO is given a complete geometric model of the object. A low level vision module extracts and groups characteristic features in images of the object. The positions of the object are determined in a sequence of images, and a motion estimate of the object is obtained. This motion estimate is used to plan trajectories of the robot tool to relative locations nearby the object sufficient for achieving the tasks. More specifically, low level vision uses parallel algorithms for image enchancement by symmetric nearest neighbor filtering, edge detection by local gradient operators, and corner extraction by sector filtering. The object pose estimation is a Hough transform method accumulating position hypotheses obtained by matching triples of image features (corners) to triples of model features. To maximize computing speed, the estimate of the position in space of a triple of features is obtained by decomposing its perspective view into a product of rotations and a scaled orthographic projection. This allows the use of 2-D lookup tables at each stage of the decomposition. The position hypotheses for each possible match of model feature triples and image feature triples are calculated in parallel. Trajectory planning combines heuristic and dynamic programming techniques. Then trajectories are created using parametric cubic splines between initial and goal trajectories. All the parallel algorithms run on a Connection Machine CM-2 with 16K processors.

Davis, Larry S.↗
NASA NTRS1989

Robot Acting on Moving Bodies (RAMBO): Interaction with tumbling objects

Interaction with tumbling objects will become more common as human activities in space expand. Attempting to interact with a large complex object translating and rotating in space, a human operator using only his visual and mental capacities may not be able to estimate the object motion, plan actions or control those actions. A robot system (RAMBO) equipped with a camera, which, given a sequence of simple tasks, can perform these tasks on a tumbling object, is being developed. RAMBO is given a complete geometric model of the object. A low level vision module extracts and groups characteristic features in images of the object. The positions of the object are determined in a sequence of images, and a motion estimate of the object is obtained. This motion estimate is used to plan trajectories of the robot tool to relative locations rearby the object sufficient for achieving the tasks. More specifically, low level vision uses parallel algorithms for image enhancement by symmetric nearest neighbor filtering, edge detection by local gradient operators, and corner extraction by sector filtering. The object pose estimation is a Hough transform method accumulating position hypotheses obtained by matching triples of image features (corners) to triples of model features. To maximize computing speed, the estimate of the position in space of a triple of features is obtained by decomposing its perspective view into a product of rotations and a scaled orthographic projection. This allows use of 2-D lookup tables at each stage of the decomposition. The position hypotheses for each possible match of model feature triples and image feature triples are calculated in parallel. Trajectory planning combines heuristic and dynamic programming techniques. Then trajectories are created using dynamic interpolations between initial and goal trajectories. All the parallel algorithms run on a Connection Machine CM-2 with 16K processors.

Davis, Larry S.↗
NASA NTRS2010

Wavefront Control and Image Restoration with Less Computing

PseudoDiversity is a method of recovering the wavefront in a sparse- or segmented- aperture optical system typified by an interferometer or a telescope equipped with an adaptive primary mirror consisting of controllably slightly moveable segments. (PseudoDiversity should not be confused with a radio-antenna-arraying method called pseudodiversity.) As in the cases of other wavefront- recovery methods, the streams of wavefront data generated by means of PseudoDiversity are used as feedback signals for controlling electromechanical actuators of the various segments so as to correct wavefront errors and thereby, for example, obtain a clearer, steadier image of a distant object in the presence of atmospheric turbulence. There are numerous potential applications in astronomy, remote sensing from aircraft and spacecraft, targeting missiles, sighting military targets, and medical imaging (including microscopy) through such intervening media as cells or water. In comparison with prior wavefront-recovery methods used in adaptive optics, PseudoDiversity involves considerably simpler equipment and procedures and less computation. For PseudoDiversity, there is no need to install separate metrological equipment or to use any optomechanical components beyond those that are already parts of the optical system to which the method is applied. In Pseudo- Diversity, the actuators of a subset of the segments or subapertures are driven to make the segments dither in the piston, tilt, and tip degrees of freedom. Each aperture is dithered at a unique frequency at an amplitude of a half wavelength of light. During the dithering, images on the focal plane are detected and digitized at a rate of at least four samples per dither period. In the processing of the image samples, the use of different dither frequencies makes it possible to determine the separate effects of the various dithered segments or apertures. The digitized image-detector outputs are processed in the spatial-frequency (Fourier-transform) domain to obtain measures of the piston, tip, and tilt errors over each segment or subaperture. Once these measures are known, they are fed back to the actuators to correct the errors. In addition, measures of errors that remain after correction by use of the actuators are further utilized in an algorithm in which the image is phase-corrected in the spatial-frequency domain and then transformed back to the spatial domain at each time step and summed with the images from all previous time steps to obtain a final image having a greater signal-to-noise ratio (and, hence, a visual quality) higher than would otherwise be attainable.

Lyon, Richard G.↗
NASA NTRS1984

Use of the TM tasseled cap transform for interpretation of spectral contrasts in an urban scene

Investigations are being conducted with the objective to develop automated numerical image analysis procedures. In this context, an examination is performed of physically-based multispectral data transforms as a means to incorporate a priori knowledge of land radiance properties in the analysis process. A physically-based transform of TM observations was developed. This transform extends the Landsat MSS Tasseled Cap transform reported by Kauth and Thomas (1976) to TM data observations. The present study has the aim to examine the utility of the TM Tasseled Cap transform as applied to TM data from an urban landscape. The analysis conducted is based on 512 x 512 subset of the Washington, DC November 2, 1982 TM scene, centered on Springfield, VA. It appears that the TM tasseled cap transformation provides a good means to explain land physical attributes of the Washington scene. This result provides a suggestion regarding a direction by which a priori knowledge of landscape spectral patterns may be incorporated into numerical image analysis.

Goward, S. N.↗
NASA NTRS1979

Application of abstract harmonic analysis to the high-speed recognition of images

Methods are constructed for rapidly computing correlation functions using the theory of abstract harmonic analysis. The theory developed includes as a particular case the familiar Fourier transform method for a correlation function which makes it possible to find images which are independent of their translation in the plane. Two examples of the application of the general theory described are the search for images, independent of their rotation and scale, and the search for images which are independent of their translations and rotations in the plane.

Usikov, D. A.↗
NASA NTRS1990

Joint transform correlation with the synthetic estimation filter

The synthetic estimation filter (SEF) combines a set of input images into a much smaller set of filters. Those input images correspond to views of a known object taken with a variety of values of the pose parameter to be estimated. The response of the filter to variations in the pose parameter is tailored so that estimation can be done to a precision considerably finer than the intervals between filters in the pose space. The technique is extended to the joint transform correlator; as a reference, the composite image from which the SEF is conventionally calculated is used. Precautions are necessary for practical reasons. For example, the SEF algorithm may call for negative values in the image, an unrealizable condition with amplitude encoding, whereas with phase-mostly filtering in the SEF, negative image values are easily accommodated.

Monroe, Stanley E., Jr.↗
NASA NTRS2009

Objective Lens Optimized for Wavefront Delivery, Pupil Imaging, and Pupil Ghosting

An interferometer objective lens (or diverger) may be used to transform a collimated beam into a diverging or converging beam. This innovation provides an objective lens that has diffraction-limited optical performance that is optimized at two sets of conjugates: imaging to the objective focus and imaging to the pupil. The lens thus provides for simultaneous delivery of a high-quality beam and excellent pupil resolution properties.

Olzcak, Gene↗
NASA NTRS1990

Transformation of vector magnetograms and the problems associated with the effects of perspective and the azimuthal ambiguity

Off-center vector magnetograms which use all three components of the measured field provide the maximum information content from the photospheric field and can provide the most consistent potential field independent of the viewing angle by defining the normal component of the field. The required transformations of the magnetic field vector and the geometric mapping of the observed field in the image plane into the heliographic plane have been described. Here we discuss the total transformation of specific vector magnetograms to detail the problems and procedures that one should be aware of in analyzing observational magnetograms. The effect of the 180-deg ambiguity of the observed transverse field is considered as well as the effect of curvature of the photosphere. Specific results for active regions AR 2684 (September 23, 1980) and AR 4474 (April 26, 1984) from the Marshall Space Flight Center Vector magnetograph are described which point to the need for the heliographic projection in determining the field structure of an active region.

Gary, G. Allen↗
NASA NTRS1986

Landsat D Thematic Mapper image dimensionality reduction and geometric correction accuracy

To characterize and quantify the performance of the Landsat thematic mapper (TM), techniques for dimensionality reduction by linear transformation have been studied and evaluated and the accuracy of the correction of geometric errors in TM images analyzed. Theoretical evaluations and comparisons for existing methods for the design of linear transformation for dimensionality reduction are presented. These methods include the discrete Karhunen Loeve (KL) expansion, Multiple Discriminant Analysis (MDA), Thematic Mapper (TM)-Tasseled Cap Linear Transformation and Singular Value Decomposition (SVD). A unified approach to these design problems is presented in which each method involves optimizing an objective function with respect to the linear transformation matrix. From these studies, four modified methods are proposed. They are referred to as the Space Variant Linear Transformation, the KL Transform-MDA hybrid method, and the First and Second Version of the Weighted MDA method. The modifications involve the assignment of weights to classes to achieve improvements in the class conditional probability of error for classes with high weights. Experimental evaluations of the existing and proposed methods have been performed using the six reflective bands of the TM data. It is shown that in terms of probability of classification error and the percentage of the cumulative eigenvalues, the six reflective bands of the TM data require only a three dimensional feature space. It is shown experimentally as well that for the proposed methods, the classes with high weights have improvements in class conditional probability of error estimates as expected.

Ford, G. E.↗
NASA NTRS1990

Programmable remapper with single flow architecture

The invention relates to image processing systems and methods and in particular to a machine which accepts a real time video image in the form of a matrix of picture elements (pixels) and remaps such image according to a selectable one of a plurality of mapping functions to create an output matrix of pixels. Such mapping functions, or transformations, may be any one of a number of different transformations depending on the objective of the user of the system. The system remaps input images from one coordinate system to another using a set of look-up tables for the data necessary for the transform. The transforms, which are operator selectable, are precomputed and loaded into massive look-up tables. Input pixels, via the look-up tables of any particular transform selected, are mapped into output pixels with the radiance information of the input pixels being appropriately weighted. An earlier embodiment of the system included two parallel processors: a collective processor which mapped multiple input pixels into a single output pixel and an interpolative processor. The interpolative processor performed an interpolation among pixels in the input image where a given input pixel may affect the value of many output pixels. Several advantages are provided over previous embodiments in that the two distinct processors are replaced by a single processor capable of performing both types of operations (collective and interpolative) with no more complexity. Previously, there has existed no image processor or 'remapper' that can operate with sufficient speed and flexibility to permit investigating different transformation patterns in real time.

Fisher, Timothy E.↗
NASA NTRS2023

Estimating the Subsolar Magnetopause Position from Soft X-Ray Images Using a Low-Pass Image Filter

The Lunar Environment heliospheric X-ray Imager (LEXI) and Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer (SMILE) missions will image the Earth’s dayside magnetopause and cusps in soft X-rays after their respective launches in the near future, to specify global magnetic reconnection modes for varying solar wind conditions. To support the success of these scientific missions, it is critical to develop techniques that extract the magnetopause locations from the observed soft X-ray images. In this research, we introduce a new geometric equation that calculates the subsolar magnetopause position ( R s ) from a satellite position, the look direction of the instrument, and the angle at which the X-ray emission is maximized. Two assumptions are used in this method: (1) The look direction where soft X-ray emissions are maximized lies tangent to the magnetopause, and (2) the magnetopause surface near the subsolar point is almost spherical and thus R s is nearly equal to the radius of the magnetopause curvature. We create synthetic soft X-ray images by using the Open Geospace General Circulation Model (OpenGGCM) global magnetohydrodynamic model, the galactic background, the instrument point spread function, and Poisson noise. We then apply the fast Fourier transform and Gaussian low-pass filters to the synthetic images to remove noise and obtain accurate look angles for the soft X-ray peaks. From the filtered images, we calculate R 2 and its accuracy for different LEXI locations, look directions, and solar wind densities by using the OpenGGCM subsolar magnetopause location as ground truth. Our method estimates R s with an accuracy of <0.3 R E when the solar wind density exceeds >10 cm -3 . The accuracy improves for greater solar wind densities and during southward interplanetary magnetic fields. The method captures the magnetopause motion during southward interplanetary magnetic field turnings. Consequently, the technique will enable quantitative analysis of the magnetopause motion and help reveal the dayside reconnection modes for dynamic solar wind conditions. This technique will support the LEXI and SMILE missions in achieving their scientific objectives.

Hyangpyo Kim↗
NASA NTRS1995

An Image Processing Algorithm Based On FMAT

Information deleted in ways minimizing adverse effects on reconstructed images. New grey-scale generalization of medial axis transformation (MAT), called FMAT (short for Fuzzy MAT) proposed. Formulated by making natural extension to fuzzy-set theory of all definitions and conditions (e.g., characteristic function of disk, subset condition of disk, and redundancy checking) used in defining MAT of crisp set. Does not need image to have any kind of priori segmentation, and allows medial axis (and skeleton) to be fuzzy subset of input image. Resulting FMAT (consisting of maximal fuzzy disks) capable of reconstructing exactly original image.

Wang, Lui↗
NASA NTRS1983

Application of the one-dimensional Fourier transform for tracking moving objects in noisy environments

In Riddle and Rajala (1981), an algorithm was presented which operates on an image sequence to identify all sets of pixels having the same velocity. The algorithm operates by performing a transformation in which all pixels with the same two-dimensional velocity map to a peak in a transform space. The transform can be decomposed into applications of the one-dimensional Fourier transform and therefore can gain from the computational advantages of the FFT. The aim of this paper is the concern with the fundamental limitations of that algorithm, particularly as relates to its sensitivity to image-disturbing parameters as noise, jitter, and clutter. A modification to the algorithm is then proposed which increases its robustness in the presence of these disturbances.

Rajala, S. A.↗
NASA NTRS1990

Earth benefits from space life sciences

Contributions of space exploration which are widely recognized are those dealing with the impact of space technology on public health and medical services in both urban and remote rural areas. Telecommunications, image enhancement, 3-dimensional image reconstructions, miniaturization, automation, and data analysis, have transformed the delivery of medical care and have brought about a new impetus to the field of biomedicine. Many areas of medical care and biological research have been affected. These include technological breakthroughs in such areas as: (1) diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of cardiovascular diseases, (2) new approaches to the understanding of osteoporosis, (3) early detection of genetic birth defects, (4) emergency medical care, and (5) treatment of chronic metabolic disorders. These are but a few examples where technology originally developed to support space medicine or space research has been applied to solving medical and health care delivery problems on Earth.

NASA Center HQS↗
NASA NTRS1988

Spatial compression of Seasat SAR imagery

The results of a study of techniques for spatial compression of synthetic-aperture-radar (SAR) imagery are summarized. Emphasis is on image-data volume reduction for archive and online storage applications while preserving the image resolution and radiometric fidelity. A quantitative analysis of various techniques, including vector quantization (VQ) and adaptive discrete cosine transform (ADCT), is presented. Various factors such as compression ratio, algorithm complexity, and image quality are considered in determining the optimal algorithm. The compression system requirements are established for electronic access of an online archive system based on the results of a survey of the science community. The various algorithms are presented and their results evaluated considering the effects of speckle noise and the wide dynamic range inherent in SAR imagery. The conclusion is that although the ADCT produces the best signal-to-distortion-noise ratio for a given compression ratio, the two-level tree-searched VQ technique is preferred due to its simplicity of decoding and near-optimal performance.

Chang, C. Y.↗
NASA NTRS1991

SAR data compression: Application, requirements, and designs

The feasibility of reducing data volume and data rate is evaluated for the Earth Observing System (EOS) Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR). All elements of data stream from the sensor downlink data stream to electronic delivery of browse data products are explored. The factors influencing design of a data compression system are analyzed, including the signal data characteristics, the image quality requirements, and the throughput requirements. The conclusion is that little or no reduction can be achieved in the raw signal data using traditional data compression techniques (e.g., vector quantization, adaptive discrete cosine transform) due to the induced phase errors in the output image. However, after image formation, a number of techniques are effective for data compression.

Curlander, John C.↗