May 5, 1999
Web posted at: 4:29 p.m. EDT (2029 GMT)

Before and After VISAR enhanced images

before after

(CNN) -- Software originally developed to clarify images of the sun may soon be employed in far more earthly applications.

NASA officials say they are pursuing a patent for software, developed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, that could help law enforcement agencies catch criminals by improving crime scene video.

Similar technology already has been used to help the FBI enhance video of the bombing at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. NASA software clarified dark, nighttime videotape made with a handheld camcorder, revealing important details that had been obscured.

The Video Image Stabilization and Registration (VISAR) also may be useful for medical imaging, scientific applications and home video, NASA said in a statement.

"This product has so many applications that will benefit the public -- from very technical to those almost anybody can use," said Paul Meyer, one of the technology's inventors at the Marshall Center.

Its developers say the video stabilization system can eliminate flaws in the video, remove blurs and stabilize images. As a result, a nighttime crime scene can be made to appear as if it happened in daytime, enabling law enforcement officers to identify valuable clues.

"This NASA-developed technology has the potential to stabilize images so that criminals and other important clues can be identified, even in blurred images," said Dr. Arsev H. Eraslan, chief scientist of both the NASA National Technology Transfer Center and the Office of Law Enforcement Technology and Commercialization in Wheeling, West Virginia.

"It's like a video eraser," said Dr. David Hathaway, the technology's co-inventor at the Marshall Center. "It removes defects due to image jitter, image rotation and image zoom in video sequences."

Hathaway, a Marshall solar physicist, has developed software to clarify video images of the sun. His partner, Meyer, a Marshall atmospheric scientist, has refined image-processing techniques to analyze space launch video and to study meteorological images. When the FBI asked NASA to help improve the quality of the Olympic bombing video, the Marshall scientists volunteered their expertise.

"Our teamwork, with each of us coming from different disciplines, is what made the creation of this product possible," said Meyer.

Once digital cameras become more affordable, it might even be practical to use the system inside video recorders to stabilize and enhance images as they are recorded, Hathaway said.

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