CSI Image Enhancement Software

[Raid]

On my recent trip, I was reviewing my photos in Camera on a large screen TV (HDMI Interface) and I got a question about the photo editing software you see on the TV show CSI. This is the software that has the "Enhance Detail" function. Now I didn't want to offend anybody so I just changed the subject, ignoring the question. As you get older pretending to be a bit deaf has an advantage.

Has anybody got any ideas about how best to answer this one? Serious and non-serious suggestions welcome.

[Sheiky]

I don't really see the question, but I assume that you're interested in the program?
It is most likely(I'm like 99.9% sure) that the software you see isn't software at all and the image that you see getting enhanced is a reverse process of the video they make. In other words, they take a good quality clip, they add a lot of noise and zoom out on it. They record the process and reverse the video that they took of the process. That's my idea At least I'm pretty sure they don't have any magical program that we cannot get our hands on. So if you think it's impossible...it probably is

[HDNitehawk]

It is similar to using the transporter logs on a starship, much as they did in the old Star Trek shows. The doctor can use those logs to determine what has changed in the patient since the last time they transported. ..... I think the simple answer to your question is...It is Hollywood and it is all make believe

[bigblue1ca]

I work in a field where thanks to TV and Movies some people have some pretty wild ideas about what can be done. When they ask me, I take an approach similar to HDNitehawk....and say, Hollywood is great, on TV anything is possible, I wish we could do half the things they can.

[ChadS]

I'm actually working on a project in this field at the moment (image extraction from noise basically). There are mathematical rules governing how much information can be carried by a given image - basically it's thermodynamics rewritten for information states rather than energy states for the definition of entropy for those that care. Now, it turns out the amount of information content is actually is actually quite a bit higher in an image than one would guess but it's nowhere near what shows like CSI (and others) demonstrate when they say 'zoom in on that area' and then 'sharpen that.'

That said, there are ways to resolve sub-pixel-resolution features. Generally, however, you have to have multiple images of the same object from slightly different framing. Video cameras are good for this. Using multiple successive images of a car driving past a traffic video camera it is possible (under certain limitations) to resolve details like license plate numbers that would otherwise be below the resolution of the sensor. This is done all the time. However, it's very computationally intensive but is most like what you see during a CSI episode. You draw a box around the region you want to enhance and the software tries to extract the most probably source that would create the image seen in each video clip. But don't expect to get 10X the native resolution of the sensor - maybe 1.5X for a few tens of images.

[jrw]

I have worked with some rather advanced imaging software for use with automated vision inspection systems. There are existing image filters that can do much to clean up images when supplied with an appropriate set of variables, threshold values, and constraints. Once set up the systems can apply the same settings to consistent quality input images with repeatable output results. Move the camera, change the lighting or anything else and you will likely need to spend some time modifying the values before resuming testing. I think that the basic building blocks for such a system are in existence but have not seen any headlines about a piece of software with the ability to establish its own variable levels to allow autonomous operation.

In the post processing of your own images with photshop, you already have the ability to crop, upres, sharpen (using different methods), squelch noise, convert to B&W, output bitmap images with custom thresholds, and create scripts to automate repititious tasks. Are these not the building blocks for such a system?

JRW

[Steve U]

Shows like CSI tend to raise a lot of questions for me as well.
1. The first one is why I chose locksmithing as a trade and not a CSI/scientist? It seems all the hottest girls look as though quit their modelling jobs and step straight off the runways of Paris and New York and then become CSI's.
2. The lab lighting is mood lighting and not as bright as most candle lit dinners, I couldn't trim my toenails let alone decpher the DNA off a bike seat, how do they get anything done? I would spend my whole day bumping into filing cabinets or wondering how someone with 20years CSI experience still looks as though they are 23, or is it just the lighting in here.
3. How do the lady CSI's drive their cars in shoes like that, let alone try and chase a "perp" down a littered slippery alley?
4. And finally why do the CSI's get so much question time with the suspects, they do more interviews than the police do?
Oh and then there's that one about where can I buy their image sharpening software?

[Jarhead5811]

I tell people CSI is science fiction. Many things they do may be theoretically possible but aren't a reality, yet. DNA evidence for instance can not be processed in less than 36 hours. Local police departments generally don't have this capability and the labs that do have a back log that is sometimes over a year long.

Oh, and NCIS specifically doesn't have a crime lab. They send their evidence to the Army's lab in Atlanta. Hopefully you hear back something before you change duty stations!

Real investigations are solved largely though interviews and interrogations using much more mundane evidence. Criminals, by in large, are incredible dumba---es and tend to let their mouth do them in.

[ChadS]

Real investigations are solved largely though interviews and interrogations using much more mundane evidence. Criminals, by in large, are incredible dumba---es and tend to let their mouth do them in.

Which is why my step-father's advice (a trial attorney) to me was always have your attorney present when talking with police. Even if it's just for "background" or to file your own complaint - even for a traffic stop! Be courteous but don't answer anything... Then again, he was a bit of a cynic.

[Jarhead5811]

I've heard worse advise .