Spirit's UnderBelly, processing the MI images Options

[PDP8E]

Here is a work in progress.
I was working on a another thread (processing the envelope challenge for PFK) and thought I could use the same technique to 'see' underneath Spirit's deck with the MI.
While I don't fix the focus, the technique does what amounts to a smart contrast...
If anyone would like to to do a mosaic, i would appreciate it (I haven't done them enough to pull them off like you guys)
I will post the whole underbelly later, but here are the test images:



Cheers and thanks!

[RoverDriver]

That's pretty impressive! Can you do the other frames as well? I'm particularly interested to th LM wheel and surrounding area.

Paolo

[Astro0]

Nice work PDP8E
Here's a mosaic of your images.

[Astro0]

Here are the variants that have appeared so far.
A combination of these techniques would produce some interesting results.


More work for we UMSF'ers I suggest.

[Floyd]

pdp8 Do you think think the focus deconvolution could be used after your smart contrast, or have you distorted the image too much to do a deconvolution? (not that I am the one to do such a trick)

[PDP8E]

Hi Floyd, (...nice weather you and I are having ... )
A focus deconvolution should still work...
However...The adaptive contrast enhancement was very successful in dark regions of the image.
I think it may have to do with the camera and the darker parts of the scene working together 'simulating a high f number' exposure in that area (which can fix out of focus shots). So the top and bottom of the new images are almost OK, but the sun drenched background of the middle part of the image is still way out of focus. A focus program may fix the middle 1/3 and mess up the top and bottom.
But, that's just theory! Who has a nice Richardson-Lucy deconvolver? Let's see!
I can post the rest of the image sequence tonight . (thanks for the feedback Paolo and for the mosaic Astro0)

Cheers

[jekbradbury]

This is something I did a few weeks ago using the DeconBL (Biggs-Lucy Iterative Blind Deconvolution) routine in P.J. Tadrous's excellent Biaram suite of command-line image processing tools (bialith.com) for 8,192 iterations of alternating PSF and image estimation steps. The animated GIF is composed of the output at N=0, 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, and 8192 iterations. Unfortunately, after about 2000 iterations, the process began converging to what is essentially just a noisy version of the original image. However, some of the images in between may be useful. The entire process took over 100 CPU hours, but could be repeated more efficiently for the other images by stopping after the 1024th iteration.

EDIT: whoops I ran out of bandwidth on the first site I was hosting that image at...

ADMIN: Large embedded file replaced with smaller version of animation above. Original 10mb version available here.

[PDP8E]

jekbradbury: wow! that is one groovy blind deconvolution!
I wonder if the JPL guys would share the PSF of the MI camera to make it a little less blind?
Is there any literature about using a microscope camera as a normal camera?
...like, really short exposure times and then auto contrast?
...Maybe a few different exposure times for different distances? and then piece it together?

Anyway, here are the rest (7) of the images that I processed. (the first 3, were posted previously)
Astro0: if you would be so kind as to use your superior mosaic skills, I would be in your debt.
It looks like a big rock is next to the LM wheel (the right most image in the soon to be made 'Astro0 mosaic', or the last image in this sequence).
I am pretty sure (70%?) a deconvolution routine would clean these up....(anyone?)
This is the best I could do for now...



The rest are in the next post (I hit some upload limit...sorry doug!)

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[PDP8E]

the last one...


Cheers

[Astro0]

A quick and rough scaled down version of PDP8E's 'smart contrast' images.
Will have to work on something better later.

[Stu]

Absolutely awesome work you two. I would love to see NASA show your images, as an example of the "Citizen Science" they are encouraging and promoting so hard.

[PDP8E]

Here is an off the wall idea to get better focused images using the MI while peeking under Spirit's deck.
The rough idea is to increase the speed of the exposure, a well known technique to increase depth of field < i don't know if that is possible >
Another, is to decrease the aperture size, which increases the f number < i dont know if that is possible >
BUT !
If you cant do either of those , then decrease the amount of light per exposure, by timing the shot at dusk or dawn, and by taking multiple shots with the waning (or gathering) light.
By using enhancement tools (and much more limited deconvolution), the JPL team may gain the insight they require for the sandbox simulations. <??>
..,Spirit has a ton of watts and time....
<...well it seemed like a good idea while I was stuck in traffic...>

[Astro0]

I was looking back at the MIs and got to thinking that the offset between each image as the IDD/MI moved should be just enough to make an anaglyph possible. I think someone tried it with 'pointy rock' earlier. Here's a version with the LM wheel.


It might be useful if another set of MIs was done that better covered the area near the LM wheel which RoverDriver noted was of interest.
Applying all the techniques we are discussing here might produce some good results.

[RoverDriver]

...
The rough idea is to increase the speed of the exposure, a well known technique to increase depth of field < i don't know if that is possible >

I never heard about this technique. Do you mean to make the exposure time shorter?

...
If you cant do either of those , then decrease the amount of light per exposure, by timing the shot at dusk or dawn, and by taking multiple shots with the waning (or gathering) light.
By using enhancement tools (and much more limited deconvolution), the JPL team may gain the insight they require for the sandbox simulations. <??>
...

I'm not sure how decreasing light and/or exposure time would yeld a better image. Can you point me to some place that describes these image processing algorithms?

Paolo

[dvandorn]

Actually, PDP8E is operating under a misapprehension. I can tell his logical thought process was "If you get greater depth of field by reducing your aperture and thus cutting down on the light entering the camera, maybe you'll get greater depth of field merely by reducing the overall light level." And that's a fallacious logic chain.

You see, in the physics of photography, it's the actual size of the aperture, and not the amount of light reaching the photosensitive surface, that determines your depth of field (i.e., the range of distance from the camera in which objects are in focus). Focus has to do with the collimation (i.e., the parallel-ness) of the rays of light when they hit the film/CCDs. The smaller the aperture, the less "spread" you get from a beam of light entering, say, from the upper-right corner of the lens and then painted into the bottom-left corner of the film plane. The absolute greatest depth of field comes from a pinhole aperture, since there is almost no practical room for the light from any given area in the field of view to spread across the width of the aperture.

I have a degree in photojournalism -- some things you learn empirically, even if you're not a physicist...

-the other Doug

p.s. -- looking at PDP8E's other point, that reducing exposure time would increase depth of field, again that's not a truthful statement. The only thing that really increases depth of field is reducing aperture. If you increase the light on the subject, you can reduce aperture and thus increase depth of field, and perhaps at the same time you might need to reduce your exposure time in order to get a properly exposed image. That's the only way in which exposure time could work in with depth of field. But in general, photographers use exposure time to determine proper exposure (i.e., total amount of light) and aperture to determine proper depth of field. dvd