THE CAPTURE, DIGITIZING, REPRODUCING, AND DISTRIBUTING OF SHUTTLE IMAGES INTRODUCTION Each Shuttle mission produces 2000 to 5000 photographic images. Most images are recorded on 35mm, 70mm, and 5 inch reversal (positive) film. Some 35mm images are recorded on negative film. The film is delivered to the Image Sciences Division immediately after the flight. The images are processed as soon as possible, and prints are made available for review and screening by the prime crew, personnel from the office of public affairs (PAO), and image management personnel. The images are also digitized into a Targa format file and compressed using a JPEG technique. The Targa image files are recorded on erasable optical disks (EOD's) and retained in the archive. The JPEG image files are maintained on an image file server. Two general sets of selected JPEG images are made available on the Internet via FTP, Gopher, or World Wide Web (WWW). All images which have been selected by either the Office of Public Affairs (PAO) and by the prime crew are made available. All earth observation images taken during the latest two Shuttle missions are also made available. Access may be obtained as follows: FTP://images.jsc.nasa.gov login: anonymous Gopher://images.jsc.nasa.gov/70 http://images.jsc.nasa.gov/html/home.htm Over 250,000 images have been captured, digitized, and stored. Currently, Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and Skylab images are being captured when the capture workstations are not being used to capture Shuttle imagery. ISD also plans to capture much of the scientific and engineering photographic imagery taken on the Center. When sufficient images have been captured, the Targa image files are recorded on digital (D-2) video tape and used to produce video laser disks. At this time, two video disks have been produced containing over 150,000 images. An image selection and retrieval workstation has also been designed and constructed. Several of these workstations are currently in use at the Johnson Space Center. In the near future, the Image Sciences Division will produce CD-ROM's of selected image sets and distribute them to scientists and other users of the imagery. These CD-ROM's will also be made available for wider (public) distribution through methods yet to be determined. Several alternatives are being considered. The objective of this distribution is to distribute the imagery as widely as possible while recovering the cost of manufacturing the CD-ROM's. PROCESS A concise description of the digitizing, reproduction, and distribution process follows: 1. Within five days of the end of the mission, and with the assistance of the prime crew, image management personnel briefly describe the images and sort them into special categories for reproduction and distribution. The primary categories for distribution are earth observation images, experiment images, and images selected by both the PAO and the prime crew for release to the public. 2. The film is then forwarded to an image capture station where the images are imaged by a video camera having a resolution over 700 lines. The camera output signal (RGB) is captured by a Truevision Vista image capture card in a PC. The image is digitized as a Targa file at 756 x 486 pixels at 24 bits per pixel (8 bits per color). The digital files are approximately 1.1 megabytes in size and are written to an erasable optical disk (EOD) which serves as their archive medium. 3. When a sufficient number of image (Targa) files are available, selected image files are recorded on a digital (D-2) video tape using the EOD's as a source. Video pages of text (slates) describing the images are added to the recording. When the recording is complete, it is sent to the 3-M company where video laser disks are produced. Each video disk can contain up to 108,000 images. At this time, two video disks have been produced. It is anticipated that one disk will be produced per year. The disk will contain earth observations imagery, PAO released imagery, and perhaps some video segments of selected missions. 5. All the EOD Targa image files are transferred to a hard drive and compressed using a JPEG compression technique to an average of 40k bytes at 640x480 pixels. These JPEG image files are then temporarily stored on an image file server using Novell software. 6. Periodically, the JPEG images are loaded on a file server with access from the Internet. THE IMAGE CAPTURE AND DIGITIZING PROCESS The requirement to quickly capture and digitize images taken with 35mm, 70mm and 5 inch film along with the lack of a large digital storage capacity, and the desire to design the system within the small, low-cost computer (PC, DOS, Windows) domain led to the selection of a video capture method and the digitizing of the image using a Truevision Vista image capture card. Preliminary experiments demonstrated that the Targa image file (1.1 megabytes) produced a satisfactory electronic print when exported to a dye sublimation printer. While not of high (magazine) publication quality, the print is usable for many purposes. Even images printed from the video disks produce usable images. The JPEG images as viewed on a computer monitor and as electronically printed are also very useful for many purposes. However, the primary objective of the image digital reproduction and distribution system is to provide imagery of sufficient quality to allow an experimenter to select specific images which can then be reproduced photographically at the highest possible quality. It is not cost effective to simply reproduce all Shuttle images photographically and distribute them to all researchers since many images do not contain pertinent information for every experiment and are not used. Viewing a lower quality digital image allows the scientist or other user to identify those photographs which are of particular interest to him. Only those images can then be requested in photographic form. Not only is there a significant cost saving for the photographic laboratory, but the digital images can be given a much broader distribution. revised 06/13/94