Transcript Slide 1

Bringing Digital Technology
Back to Earth
Presented by
Ken Dozier
USC Viterbi School of Engineering
NASA Far West Technology Transfer Center
Technology Transfer
NASA Mission: Transfer
technology developed in the
space program to the private
sector,
Across all 50 States
Special focus on SME
Technology in Space Industry should be a technological
windfall to the U.S. economy
Windfall - unexpected gain, blessing, unsolicited advantage,
serendipity, stroke of luck, pleasant surprise, godsend, boon,
bonanza
Digital Resolutions
ATSC 480p (300Kp)
SMPTE
Source:
SMPTE Motion
Imaging
Feb/Mar 2004
High Definition Imaging
Changer verbage for MER stuff.
Change picture
The data was compressed
using Microsoft’s Media
Player 9
The projector is being driven
by a PC not a HD video deck
Shuttle/Earth footage
A New Paradigm Economical Technologies
Digital Camera for Acquisition
Immediate feedback for everyone
Immediate editing, color correction, immediate post
Computer(s) Storage
Server Farms
On line conform, color correction, effects, format conversion
Mastering
Digital Projection Screening Room
No tape or film
Cinema Master Workflow
Source: “A Data-Centric Approach to Cinema Mastering” Thomas J. True, SGI
Acquisition
Camera: Thompson Viper Camera 1080p
Output: 4:4:4 10-bit log
dpx format (1920 x 1080)
Capture: Directors Friend
Image courtesy of Thompson Grass Valley
Camera: Sony F950
Output: 4:4:4 10-bit Linear RGB
CIF format (1920 x 1080)
Capture: Dual HD-SDI tapeless system
Image courtesy of Sony
Post Production
eFilm Configuration
Imagica Film
Scanners
Visual Effects
Optical House
Titling House
CXFS SAN
52 TB TP4900
Brocade Switches
ELab Real-time
Coloring Timing and
Dust-busting
SGI Onyx 3400
ELab Real-time
Film Stock Emulation
SGI Onyx 3400
DLP Projection
Screening Theater
Laser Film
Output
Multiversion
Rendering
SGI Origin 300
Edit Rendering
SGI Origin 300
Backup Server
SGI Origin 300
Source: “Digital Infrastructure Solution for Production” J. Farney, SGI
Distribution Media Bandwidth
Async. Transfer Mode
(ATM)
• Satellite
• Land-based/
Wired
broadband
• Physical digital
media
Gigabit Ethernet
IEEE 1394 / Firewire
LASER / Fast Ethernet
10BaseT / CAT 5
Microwave / Ethernet
G3 / Wireless LAN
DSL/ Cable
G2 Wireless
G1 Wireless
Source: 1999 Fall Meeting,
Community Development Council, Chuck Matthews
INFOWORLD, Sept. 2000
B01-017
Projection
• Digital Light Processing (DLP)
Developed at Texas Instruments
max resolution (2048 x 1080)
• Direct Drive Image Light Amplifier (DLIA)
Developed at JVC
max resolution (2048 x 1536)
Image courtesy of JVC
Image courtesy of TI
HDTV Title
(acquition)“Pasadena”
• Boom mounted Sony F900 camera
allowed close moves.
• Shot @ 1920 x 1080
• One day of shooting (4 hours of material)
• Cameraman used HD Monitor not
Eyepiece.
• Tiny Projector @ 1024 x 768
Cinema projector @ 1280 x 1024
Pasadena-clip-1
HDTV Title
(post production)“Pasadena”
Adobe Premiere using
proxy images
Down sampled to
480 x 240 images for
editing on ordinary PC
Time Code was not
used or needed
HDTV Title
(distribution) Pasadena”
Full 1920 x 1080
resolution HD conformed
on a PC
Finished HD playback
1280 x 720. (720P)
Pasadena-clip
NASA Technology
• Millions $$ in Government funded R&D
• Special programs for SMEs
• Available for Licensing and
Commercial Development
• Help in accessing information
is available through USC’s
Engineering Technology Transfer Center
• See the web page at http://www.usc.edu/go/TTC
Technology Opportunities
DIGITAL VIDEO QUALITY
 PROBLEM ADDRESSED Evaluation of visual quality of digital video (HDTV)
 TECHNICAL APPROACH A computationally efficient metric based on human visual processing: (1) Comparison of one or more selected
features (image frames, color channels, rows of blocks, columns of blocks, horizontal spatial frequencies, or vertical spatial frequencies) of
processed digital sequences of the image under evaluation and a reference image: (2) Processing consisting of sampling, cropping, and
color transformations, blocking, acceleration of spatial filtering by taking discrete cosine transforms, temporal filtering and normalization to
visual thresholds
Reference Image Sequence
Test Image Sequence
Temporal
Filtering
Sampling, Cropping and
Color Transformations
Transformation
To Contrast
Sensitivity
Functions
Blocking
Discrete Cosine
Transform
Contrast
Masking
Pooling
Transformation to
Local Contrast
Conversion
To a Measure
of Visual Quality
 POTENTIAL APPLICATIONS Any digital display, e.g. HDTV
 BENEFITS (1) Quantitative assessment of display quality that incorporates properties or human visual processing, (i.e., dynamic
adaptation to changing brightness, luminance, and chromatic channels, spatial and temporal filtering, spatial frequency channels, dynamic
contrast masking, and summation of probabilities); (2) Requires only modest computational resources to compute metrics in real time
Technology Opportunities
VISAR
Image Stabilization and Registration
 PROBLEM ADDRESSED: VISAR is a computer algorithm that corrects for zoom, tilt, and jitter
 TECHNICAL APPROACH: By combining several video images together, noise can be averaged out among the
frames and the video frames can be centered on the screen.
 BENEFITS:
(1) Stabilize, sharpen, and brighten image sequences
and stills
(2) Steadying and reducing the noise in the images,
brings out a wealth of information, revealing new,
previously obscured details
 POTENTIAL APPLICATIONS: Surveillance,
crime scene footage, sting operations, and
dash-mounted video cameras, Security, video feed
from aircraft, target identification and confirmation,
training, and event reconstruction
Images courtesy of NASA Ames Vision group
Technology Opportunities
VIDEO DISPLAY ENGINEERING
AND OPTIMIZATION SYSTEM
PROBLEM ADDRESSED: Computer-aided design (CAD) of visual
displays
TECHNICAL APPROACH: (1) Programmable computer with a number of
discrete software modules for modeling display system components; (2)
Integration of models of circuit, electro-optics, surface geometry, and
physiological optics components to simulate performance of display
POTENTIAL APPLICATIONS: Design of displays and control interfaces in
a variety of applications: e.g., avionics and automotive displays, computer
system displays, telecommunications systems, data display systems,
entertainment systems
BENEFITS: (1) Avoids costly and time consuming iterative conventional
design process; (2) All system elements included in simulation, with ability
to modify each individually ; (3) Objective performance measurement with
comparisons to a a standard system design; (4) Capability of combining
empirical data with theoretical models in simulation
Technology Opportunities
DISTRIBUTED INTELLIGENT AGENTS FOR INFORMATION
MANAGEMENT AND SHARING (DIAMS)
PROBLEM ADDRESSED: Management and sharing of information distributed over the
Internet
TECHNICAL APPROACH: Gathering, organizing, and sharing of relevant information on
the Internet by integrating knowledge-based, neural network and genetic algorithm
technologies in distributed and collaborative information agents: (1) Information access
based on dynamically organized views of personal information repositories using
knowledge-based and neural network representation and indexing; (2) Organization of
information based on observing users’ preferences for organizing information; (3)
Knowledge exchange protocol for collaboration using distributed automated agents
incorporating multi-attribute network objects, added semantic knowledge, and symbolic
processing capabilities
POTENTIAL APPLICATIONS: Widely usable for efficient information gathering on the
WWW by individuals and for sharing of information for collaboration; e.g., for distributed
manufacturing, joint research projects, military deployments, etc.
BENEFITS: (1) Rapid and effective access to information for both individuals and work
groups; (2) Dynamically adaptive, avoiding static, hierarchical and monolithic
shortcomings of some current Internet information aids; (3) Flexible interface protocols,
permitting use of existing tools and capabilities; (4) Reduction in amount of irrelevant
information in WWW searches
Technology Opportunities
AUTOMATION OF INFORMATION ACQUISITION
AND MANIPULATION (AIMS)
PROBLEM ADDRESSED: Improvement in data search, retrieval,
discovery, and processing
TECHNICAL APPROACH: Automatic manipulation of digital information
with Java-based software that (1) automates the collection and formatting
of different data types, followed by (2) complete integration of the data for
processing, analysis, and extraction of results
POTENTIAL APPLICATIONS: Any area in which large amounts of
disparate data must be collected and manipulated, e.g. medical imaging;
monitoring and control of industrial processes; processing of data in
geosciences, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals; development of maps of
terrain and demographic information; etc.
BENEFITS: (1) A powerful, flexible system that is broadly applicable; (2)
Reduction in manual labor; (3) Performance of tasks in real and near-real
time; (4) A comprehensive system that not only gathers data, but also
identifies, processes and tracks desired information
Technology Opportunities
ADAPTIVE RELEVANCE-LEARNING SYSTEM (ARNIE)
PROBLEM ADDRESSED: Adaptive information indexing and retrieval agent
TECHNICAL APPROACH: A computerized personal librarian assistant using a
neural network that is dynamically configured with a genetic algorithm: (1)
Learns users’ interests based on how they organize information, enabling the
encoding of information according to relevance and structure; (2) Permits user
feedback on resource utility which is then used to dynamically update ranking of
resources
POTENTIAL APPLICATIONS: Widely usable for information gathering under
various contexts: e.g., already used in a Boeing Portable Maintenance Aid,
NASA/JSC Adaptive Hyperman Electronic Documentation system in mission
control, and WebTagger – a personal bookmarking service for Web-based
information resources.
BENEFITS: (1) Rapid and effective access to relevant information, with
minimization of irrelevant information; (2) Efficacy proven (e.g., 94.8%
relevance on retrieved materials when user profile known vs. 10% relevance for
unlearned user profile); (3) System accessible from Internet
Technology Opportunities
ADVANCES IN PARALLEL COMPUTING ON ADAPTIVE GRIDS
PROBLEM ADDRESSED: Optimization of parallel computing on unstructured
grids
TECHNICAL APPROACH: Five approaches, comprising: (1) Improvements in
rates and efficiency through multithreading; (2) Partitioning of computational
loads among the parallel processors by use of self-avoiding walk algorithm; (3)
A load balancing strategy for integrating all major components, including
interfaces between a parallel mesh-adapting code and a data remapping
module; (4) Balancing loads using a global view that is updated each time the
grid is adapted; (5) Load balancing based on symmetric broadcast networks
POTENTIAL APPLICATIONS: Any adaptive grid tying together parallel
processors, e.g. in networks of supercomputers for rapid computation of
complex problems, for weather and climate change forecasting, for scientific
computing in biology, chemistry, and physics, etc.
BENEFITS: (1) Increased computing rates and efficiencies; (2) Reduction of
clashes in use of computing resources; (3) More equitable use of computing
resources, with particular computing assignments matched to capabilities; (4)
Real-time optimization of grid
Technology Opportunities
SCALABLE HIERARCHICAL NETWORK MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
FOR DISPLAYING NETWORK INFORMATION IN THREE DIMENSIONS
PROBLEM ADDRESSED: Hierarchical network management and control
TECHNICAL APPROACH: A three tier network management system
comprising: (1) Simple network management protocol (SNMP) agents
distributed at one or more sites; (2) Server module configured exclusively
for hierarchical network management protocol (HNMP) communications,
connected with input-output modules that are configured for both SNMP
and HNMP; (3) Management aided by informationally complete and noniconified views provided of network elements, with network information
displayed in three dimensions
POTENTIAL APPLICATIONS: Generally applicable to any local or wide
area network of computers; particularly useful for management of large
high speed networks
BENEFITS: (1) A distributed architecture system based on open,
published, standard; (2) Capability of displaying network information at
multiple levels without hiding data behind other data; (3) No editing of
displays required of user; (4) Capability of monitoring networks having
multiple managerial points of control; (5) Not limited in scalability (6) Not
subject to data overload; (7) Does not provide false information due to data
flow latency; (8) Substantial user involvement not required
Technology Opportunities
AUTOMATED TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
AND METHOD, AND REAL-TIME SURFACE TRAFFIC ADVISER
PROBLEM ADDRESSED: Real-time data management system for data
generated at different rates by many incompatible data sources
TECHNICAL APPROACH: (1) A client-server expert system for fusing
data from a variety of sources, with means of establishing, predicting, and
updating reference data values; (2) electronic communications system for
facilitating information sharing between different domains of control; (3)
Easy-to-understand electronic display of data
POTENTIAL APPLICATIONS: Scheduling of movement of multiple
vehicles, such as aircraft at airports, marine vessels in harbors and ports,
trucks or railroad cars in shipping and switching yards: Useful also for
managing containers at shipping docks and stock in factories or
warehouses; Simulation and training tool for operators
BENEFITS: (1) Control and management in a broad system-wide
context; (2) Optimization of resource allocation; (3) Enhanced safety
through improved situational awareness; (4) Automatic archiving in an
information system database; (5) Efficacy demonstrated in a large airport
hub (Atlanta)
Technology Opportunities
SPATIAL STANDARD OBSERVER
• PROBLEM ADDRESSED Numerical measure of the perceptual intensity and
difference of an image
• POTENTIAL APPLICATIONS Photometric instruments,
copiers, video codecs, displays, graphics software,
Optical Character Recognition (OCR) systems
• BENEFITS (1) Allows quantitative
assessment of the goodness
of a single image or
comparison of two images
Spatial Standard
Algorithm
Difference?
Technology Opportunities
DCTUNE
IMAGE COMPRESSION TECHNOLOGY
•
PROBLEM ADDRESSED: Improvement of digital image
compression
•
TECHNICAL APPROACH: Discrete cosine transform (DCT)
compression of image; customized quantization matrix to image,
using:
(1) Luminance masking
(2) Contrast masking
(3) Error pooling
(4) Entropy coding
•
•
POTENTIAL APPLICATIONS Internet multimedia, cable TV, HDTV,
motion picture transmission & archival, still or motion picture editing,
digital copiers & scanners, digital facsimile machines, digital still-and
video-cameras
Original
Optimized
Images courtesy of NASA Ames Vision group
BENEFITS Minimum perceptual error for any bit rate, or minimum bit rate for
a given perceptual error can be used as add-on SW module to existing imaging workstations
Coral Reef Adventures
42 minutes movie
Windows Media 9
1080p 24 fps.
Shot originally in IMAX
Screened with
permission by
MacGillivray
Freeman Films
Mars Rover Animation
6 minutes movie
Animated in LightWave
Rendered in Pixar
RenderMan
Windows Media 9
1080p 24 fps.
Brought to you by
The NASA Far West Regional Technology Transfer Center
http://www.usc.edu/go/TTC