So yeah this is a thing now.

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/138363-the-cia-de-blurs-license-plates-from-outer-space-now-you-can-too-for-free?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-cia-de-blurs-license-plates-from-outer-space-now-you-can-too-for-free

Quote :

"With photos, out-of-focus used to be a permanent condition. Not any more. De-blurring algorithms, written by people who paid lots of attention in math class, reduce and sometimes almost eliminate several kinds of blurring: incorrect focus, motion blur, and Gaussian blur. Moscow-based image processing guru Vladimir Yuzhikov has created SmartDeblur, a Windows application that does a remarkable job of making blurry images less blurry. Basically, the blurred bits in an image follow patterns that can be traced backwards mathematically. Deliberately blurred signs, serial numbers, and licenses can be adjusted enough to make them legible again. If you thought you used enough Photoshop Gaussian blur to mask your car’s front plate before Facebook-posting “Me driving at speed on Cannonball Run,” think again. It also has the potential to make smartphone cameras perform better. “Many people think that blurring is an irreversible operation and the information in this case is lost for good, because each pixel turns into a spot, everything mixes up, and in case of a big blur radius we will get a flat color all over the image,” Yuzhikov says. “But it is not quite true — all the information just becomes redistributed in accordance with some rules and can be definitely restored with certain assumptions.” In other words, the sharp image isn’t dead, only sleeping."

10/26/2012 11:15:22 AM

so instead of blurring stuff, now we have to put black boxes over it with mspaint

got it

10/26/2012 11:35:11 AM

And we all laughed ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vxq9yj2pVWk

... I take back my laughter now.

10/26/2012 11:41:48 AM

I'm guessing it still can't conjure up the correct pixels out of nothingness though right? Just un-blur out of focus shots?

So I still get to laugh at CSI a little bit, just not as much as before.

[Edited on October 26, 2012 at 12:15 PM. Reason : Also, mytwocents exposed in 10...]

10/26/2012 12:13:57 PM

Too bad bitch davis blacked out his phone records instead of blurring them out.

10/26/2012 4:29:18 PM

[OLD]

This example shows how to use blind deconvolution to deblur images. The blind deconvolution algorithm can be used effectively when no information about the distortion (blurring and noise) is known. The algorithm restores the image and the point-spread function (PSF) simultaneously. The accelerated, damped Richardson-Lucy algorithm is used in each iteration. Additional optical system (e.g. camera) characteristics can be used as input parameters that could help to improve the quality of the image restoration.





http://www.mathworks.com/help/images/examples/deblurring-images-using-the-blind-deconvolution-algorithm.html?prodcode=IP&language=en

10/26/2012 5:50:03 PM

Quote :

"... I take back my laughter now."

Quote :

"I'm guessing it still can't conjure up the correct pixels out of nothingness though right?"

Yea, the "enhance" trope is still fucking stupid.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EnhanceButton

Quote :

"But the Enhance Button simply ignores the fact that the big blocky pixels you get when you zoom in too close on a picture are the only information that the picture actually contains, and attempting to extract more detail than this is fundamentally impossible. No matter what you do or how you do it, you're merely guessing, if not making stuff up outright."

[Edited on October 26, 2012 at 8:03 PM. Reason : asdfasd]

10/26/2012 8:03:21 PM