Use of Digital Video Processors to Add Functionality to Digital Electronic Still Cameras

NASA/JSC has developed a prototype digital electronic still camera (DESC) which can capture digital images of nearly photographic quality using an imaging CCD array and a removable hard disk drive. As image sizes and uses grow, DESC enhancements are needed to provide image compression, image processing and manipulation, error detection and correction, and image transmission functionality. The proposed innovation is the use of digital video processors (DVPs) to provide a flexible, programmable environment for incorporation of emerging image processing, data compression, and error protection algorithms. DVPs are well suited to generic image processing and compression functions which can be tailored to the unique characteristics of high-resolution electronic still photography systems. The proposed program will: (1 ) obtain a test still-photography data set from the DESC, (2) determine image compression, quality, processing, and error protection performance requirements for NASA's future electronic still-photography systems, (3) develop lossless compression algorithms with improved switched prediction coding and statistical models tailored to DESC imagery, (4) simulate one or more lossy compression algorithms tailored to DESC imagery, (5) evaluate DVP capabilities to meet the performance requirements, and (6) document the simulation results and recommended DVP-enhanced DESC architecture for prototyping in Phase II.