Benefit from NASA

Two scientists at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center,atmospheric scientist Paul Meyer and solar physicist Dr. David Hathaway, developed promising new software, called Video Image Stabilization and Registration (VISAR). VISAR may help law enforcement agencies catch criminals by improving the quality of video recorded at crime scenes. In this photograph, the single frame at left, taken at night, was brightened in order to enhance details and reduce noise or snow. To further overcome the video defects in one frame, Law enforcement officials can use VISAR software to add information from multiple frames to reveal a person. Images from less than a second of videotape were added together to create the clarified image at right. VISAR stabilizes camera motion in the horizontal and vertical as well as rotation and zoom effects producing clearer images of moving objects, smoothes jagged edges, enhances still images, and reduces video noise or snow. VISAR could also have applications in medical and meteorological imaging. It could steady images of ultrasounds, which are infamous for their grainy, blurred quality. The software can be used for defense application by improving recornaissance video imagery made by military vehicles, aircraft, and ships traveling in harsh, rugged environments.