May 1, 2004

• Via Bruce Sterling:

  Ubergeeky digital image reconstruction and tweaking of data sent back by soviet space probes many decades ago, of the surface of Venus.

  What I love most about this page is that it contains text like this:
  

  The raw image was converted to optical density according to Russian calibration data, then to linear radiance for image processing. It was interpolated with windowed sinc filter to avoid post-aliasing (a "pixilated" appearance), and the modulation transfer function ("aperture") of the camera was corrected with a 1 + 0.2*frequency**2 emphasis. This was then written out as 8-bit gamma-corrected values, using the sRGB standard gamma of 2.2. Some of the telemetry bars on the right were replaced with data from the 124° panorama.

  The text is almost as mysterious as Venus, with buzzword factor just low enough to maybe make sense, but high enough to be just above actual comprehension.

  Cool pictures, too.

  • 7:19 am
  • 1 Comment