CAIB Foam Video

The Columbia Accident Investigation Board put the NASA tracking
camera film of the foam impact to an expert company for enhancement.
The result was the best enhancement of a film I ever saw. It
exists in two version. One full image and the other with contour
and difference image. What company was it and where on the net is
the best version of it?


## CrossPoint v3.12d R ##

On 6/1/2013 7:07 AM, wrote:
The Columbia Accident Investigation Board put the NASA tracking
camera film of the foam impact to an expert company for enhancement.
The result was the best enhancement of a film I ever saw. It
exists in two version. One full image and the other with contour
and difference image. What company was it and where on the net is
the best version of it?



I can answer the first part of your question, the second part would be
somewhat subjective I think...

A quick perusal of this document:

http://www.nasa.gov/columbia/caib/PDFS/VOL3/E02.PDF

Says on para 3 section 4.1.2:

/quote
The video cameras provided standard National Television Standards/System
Committee
(NTSC) format video of the launch. The video was recorded on M-II format
videotape
with the timing information recorded in the audio channel. The video
imagery was
transmitted to Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) and Johnson Space
Center (JSC) via
satellite replays within hours of the launch for rapid analysis. In
order to obtain best
quality video for analysis during the investigation, the original M-II
tapes were
duplicated and distributed to the team. DPS Reality was used for digital
frame grabs and
resampling from the video to provide 640 by 480 pixel images for each
frame. The
Mitchell 35 mm film cameras provided higher resolution imagery of the
launch sequence
with finer time resolution. The films were processed by Continental Labs
under contract
to Kennedy Space Center (KSC) and distributed to the teams at KSC, MSFC
and JSC.
Details about the video and film reproduction are included in the
Methods section
(Section 4.2).
/end-quote

Continental Labs is still in business and can be found he

http://continentalfilmlab.com/pages/About/about.html

The DSP Reality Graphics card was manufactured by Leitch now a part of
Harris. It's history can be found he

http://www.zenvideo.co.uk/dps_main.htm#HD


Dave

Kodak was also involved. From the NASA document cited previously:

/quote
4.2.1 Obtain Best Quality Imagery (Film and Video)
The investigation tasks required that the team use the highest quality imagery, thereby
allowing detection and enhancement of details defined by the limits of resolution of the
imagery.

Film Reproduction
During the STS-107 mission, standard procedures for film distribution were followed:
after the launch, engineering launch film prints were provided to other centers by KSC
for analysis. These film duplicates were second-generation positive copies made directly
from the original negative films (Kodak 250 daylight film). However, these engineering
copies were used extensively during the mission for screening and analysis and had been
distorted by heat from projectors and scratched by extensive handling. Additional third
generation copies of key films such as E-208 and E-212 were also used for early
analyses. Important segments of the films were scanned at the JSC Digital Imaging Lab
using a Kodak scanner to produce digital imagery for analysis.
The image analysis team had concerns about the potential loss of detail on the third
generation imagery. The most detailed analysis of the debris strike to the left wing
required the highest quality imagery to be copied directly from the original camera E-208
and E-212 launch films. To accomplish this, the original E-208 and E-212 film negatives
were hand-carried to Kodak facilities in Rochester, New York for scanning in a clean
room environment. Kodak scanned the E-208 and E-212 frames using two different
digital scanning systems (Spirit Data Cine 2K film scanner providing 10 bit, 2048 x 1556
pixel images, and Genesis 4K scanner providing 12 bit, 4096 x 3112 pixel images). A
total of three scans at a range of exposure stops (-1, normal, and +1) were performed.
The Genesis digital scans (files) were printed directly back to film providing positive
engineering prints for the different analysis groups. The digital scans were made
available to the investigators via an ftp computer site. This scanning process eliminated
the slight data loss inherent in making contact prints from the original film with minimum
degradation to the original film.
/end-quote