

Astronomy: Clever hack gets 2x Hubble's resolution, from the ground - charzom
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20761653/site/newsweek/?from=rss

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ivankirigin
Nice line: eliminate the noise that mars space images.

I've worked on a dissimilar technique called super resolution. Essentially,
you take a median pixel while super resolving over a set of images from a
video stream.

It is much less useful than getting better cameras and optics. In the case of
bomb disposal robots that send compressed, down-sampled digital video streams,
just sending a low-compression, full-resolution image turns out to be the
cheapest and easiest way to proceed.

Such simple solutions don't get you research grants though. One problem with
academia is the malice of the new. If it isn't novel, it doesn't quite matter
what system you can build. This completely ignores the idea that system
integration and deployment yields new information than lab prototypes.

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pixcavator
Would you call what you do, or what those people did, a "hack"?

The last point is sad but true.

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ivankirigin
Well, super-resolution doesn't make sense when you can control the problem.

We're stuck with the atmosphere we've got, so any increase in resolution from
ground based systems will _require_ this kind of stuff.

I can answer your question though if you can explain the meaning behind
"hack". It can mean either good or bad, so I don't like using it unless the
context makes it obvious.

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pixcavator
I was referring to the title, "Astronomy: Clever hack gets 2x Hubble's
resolution, from the ground", given to the story by the person who submitted
it. Whatever the exact meaning of "hack" is, I think it is out of place in
this context. That was my point. Sorry for not being clear.

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ivankirigin
I think it's pretty common to use "hack" to describe a clever algorithm that
achieves what others couldn't.

