Imagery technology developed at INEEL

New imagery technology developed at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory could prove invaluable to both security and medical communities.

Associated Press Spokesman Review

The Change Detection System can highlight differences in digital images that would be nearly undetectable to the untrained eye.

The technology makes it possible for analysts to detect the slightest changes in anything from satellite weather photography to home security systems.

The project, researched by INEEL’s National Security division, relies on the "flip-flop" method in which two seemingly identical images are placed on top of each other and switched back and forth rapidly.

Slight changes between the images show up as blurred movement that the human eye can recognize but often confuses computers.

The system — developed by INEEL scientists Greg Lancaster, James Litton Jones and Gordon Lassahn — can compensate for differences in camera angle, height and zoom.

Researchers say the system’s ability to compensate for camera peculiarities also makes it possible for analysts to use images from anything from hand-held to digital cameras.

Originally intended to be used as security technology, the system has also proved its ability to assist doctors in locating brain tumors in their early stages. Lead researcher Lancaster convinced doctors of the system’s benefits when he used it to compare scans of his own brain after he’d had a tumor removed.

http://www.spokesmanreview.com/news-story.asp?date=081303&ID=s1394594