Satellite Photos

Shame it's not more detailed out from Sydney.
I get a vague green and brown display for my suburb, and it doesn't gain
detail as i zoom. Pixelates instead.

-mark

On this note... Anyone have any good image enhancement software?

Looking for something that does "Hollywood-style" enhancement, I have photos
of a specific place that are fairly badly pixelated, and would like
something that can basically "zoom" it and enhance the quality/resolution of
the image.

Like you see on cop shows with a single grainy camera image turning into a
perfect portrait of the person...Something similar must be out there, but
the only ones I can find are digital photo enhancement where it enhances
shadows to bring out colours, and similar crap.

-mark

No image enhancement software can create detail that was not in the
original image.



You do realise that TV isn't real, right?  *grin*

Peter

True, but there must be programs out there with algorithms that extrapolate
the saturation and colour details from surrounding pixels, and figure out
what the image "should" look like with more detail in it. It would only help
to a certain degree, but surely it can be done!



Well, that one's a given.

-mark

"Mark jb" <jbauer at internode dot on dot net> wrote in message

extrapolate
help
As others have said, there is no such software. The only way it could be
done would be to take multiple grainy images of the same object and produce
an image that is basically an average, and probably correct.

Anything else is, as said, fiction.

Ken

Why do you think there "must" be such magical programs around.  The
relationship between a pixellated image and the more detailed image from
which it is taken is a one to many relationship.  A dog, a bear, a
motorcycle or a large steaming dragon dropping can reduce to the same group
of four pixels.  Which one should this software divine to be the original
subject.

A good introductory text in this area is "Introduction to Information Theory
and Data Compression" by Hankersson, Harris & Johnson.

What do exist out there in software land are programs which can extract a
more detailed image from a series of images (e.g. a number of sattelite
images of the same target from a slightly different position or of a number
plate from successive frames of a poor quality video).  These are based on
simple oversampling, nothing magical at all here.

Cheers,
Alf

group
Theory
number

Crap. Was kind of hoping for a silver bullet.

Figured there must be some program somewhere that does it.
If not, there will be one someday, the way computers are going!

-mark

No, there won't. You simply can't make up information like that. There
is no way to know if a white pixel is a sign saying "No exit", no matter
how much computer time you throw at it.

Cheers,
Nicholas Sherlock

Let me rephrase. The publicly available satellite photos will have the
detail to begin with.

Drinking does not help thinking.
-mark

I'm not as think as you drunk I am.

-Mark

What if the answer was philosophical?

What, like "Maybe you can exit, let's ponder for a moment"......?

Ken

Exactly.
You could waste a lot of computer time pondering the capacity for a
white pixel to become a No Exit sign in context with its environment.
So rather than using interpolation to fill in the missing pixels, we can
look at extrapolation to come up with possibilities for the missing pixels.

Interpolation = making stuff up to fit between two data points that you
do have.

Extrapolation = making stuff up to fit beyond the data you do have.

In both cases, it's still making stuff up!

Peter

<LOL> Love it.

Yes, a white (or black, or whatever) pixel is exactly that, no more no less.

Ken

Google Earth is the coolest thing since, well, Google.
Probably responsible for more company downtime than email jokes,
everywhere I look around the office I see people flying around the
planet.

Unfortunately not all of Sydney is mapped yet. The city, North of the
city, and West past Prospect haven't been mapped high res yet.
I'm waiting for the mountains to be mapped high res to get some good
canyon maps.

I can see my car in the front driveway of my house - awesome!

Google Maps uses the same data set but allows viewing with your web
browser:
http://maps.google.com /
Type in Sydney and then click on the Sydney link and Satellite view
(maps aren't working yet).
This also takes Lat/Long coords directly into the URL.
Doesn't seem to zoom quite as close as Earth though.

You can do lots of other stuff with GoogleEarth too, like overlay
images, waypoints, maps, tracks etc. You can write database backends to
feed data into the program.

Dave :)

My boss has a brother in the GIS game. Google earth is very
impressive, but i can assure you that there is some products out there
that are even better. I wonder if you pay for the google stuff if it
is much better.

"The Real Andy" <will_get_back_to_you_on_This> wrote in message


How does it rate against NASA World Wind? I'm west of Penrith NSW and can
only get grainy street detail on version 1.3
Mike

If it's who I think, a better pic here:

http://www.rh.com.au/buy/residential/propertyDisplay.jsp?propertyNum=4&referenceID79%1760