[Laser] Big adaptive optics

[James Whitfield]

From: "Laser @ KatHouse1.com"

> Although most people just wait for a good frame of video and stack it with
> another, it's possible with the proper configuration and plugins to take
> bits and pieces of frames and paste them together to reduce or eliminate
> atmospheric distortion.
>................
> None of this may be of much use when it comes to communications
though........
>................
>.......Those with just a little bit of imagination have found very creative
> ways to use simple programs.....................

I think there are ways to adapt what the program does to some of the
problems of light communication.  Suppose we apply the concept of "frame" to
a time period over which a message is sent instead of the two dimentional
image taken by  a camera.  The image processing depends on the redundancy
contained within the sequence of images to allow it to reconstruct the whole
image from the fragments that it has been able to flag as "better" than
similar fragments from the other frames.  To have similarly useful
redundancy, it would be necessary to repeat the message or encode it in a
suitable form.

As you say it takes "....juat a little bit of imagination...."

Not that all light communication problems are suitable.  But then as I
understan, the software is for improviing the images of sky objects that are
not changing.  It might not do much good if you tried to use it to restore
the images of a film clip taken out of focus, by an inexperienced cameraman
with shakey hands, on a cloudy day, of a new aerial performance routine of
the USAF Thunderbirds.

It also seems that image "improvement" applied to communication is more of a
quality issue than strict message content.  If you take a picture of a star
field, the improvement may be in resolving two close stars instead of a
bright patch.  Music on the radio played through a two inch speaker may be
easily identified, but we would expect it to sound "better" on a
quadraphonic sound system.  Morse code, rather than music may not make a
functional distinction between the two sound systems.  This leaves me
completely clueless, which I usually am, but in this case, clueless as to
how to apply adaptive optics or frame stacking software to a light
communication system that I would consider building.



> ...............It would have been VERY helpful if the originator
> of this topic posted a link to the article in question.  That way I'd have
a
> better understanding of what was being discussed.  I looked for a link but
> didn't find it.  Perhaps I missed it?
>
I got into the habit of NOT providing links within my posts to this group
because of significant problems that I encountered trying to do so when I
first joined.  I did provide the key words for searching, "Palomar" and
"Lucky Camera", which both the Cox.net and AOL web page search utilities
provided multiple articles with at least as much detail as the one I read.
Nor does it seem to me that the discussion that followed related to the
article.

The specific email that I received seems to have gotten lost, but I think
you will find all the data at:

    http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070904082539.htm


The primary reaction from the group is this is old hat and of limited value.
My intent was to stir imagination, not muddy the water.  I am sorry if I
have offended anyone or wasted the group's time.


James
 n5gui