Jerome Marot
Well-known member
The following image is not really photography, but was done with X-rays. I have been prescribed a CT scan lately and was given the data on a shiny CD-ROM. The data is a set of files in a format called "dicom" and the CD comes with a Windows program, which, when one uses a MS Windows computer, displays slides of the scan in no really useful way. Obviously, the operator of the machine had a much better program, although I should say that it was not really obvious to me what his screen displayed either. That is probably why he is a medical doctor and not me.
Anyway, to cut the story short, let us just say that I had some motivation to make better use of that data on the CD.
It just so happens that the University of South Carolina developed some software for the scientists of their Neuropsychology Lab. It also just so happens that the graphic processor in an average PC is a quite powerful tool. Converting the images to the right format was a bit involved and the software could do with better ergonomics, but eventually I got to a point where it displayed this:
(this is just a screenshot, in the program you can turn the model around to examine under any angle)
Of course, it is not a photograph as the process to come to that image is as remote to photography as could be. But the software allows us to see the data as if it were a photograph, because that is how the data is most understandable to us (untrained us, that is; radiologists may be of a different opinion): computational photography.
Anyway, to cut the story short, let us just say that I had some motivation to make better use of that data on the CD.
It just so happens that the University of South Carolina developed some software for the scientists of their Neuropsychology Lab. It also just so happens that the graphic processor in an average PC is a quite powerful tool. Converting the images to the right format was a bit involved and the software could do with better ergonomics, but eventually I got to a point where it displayed this:
(this is just a screenshot, in the program you can turn the model around to examine under any angle)
Of course, it is not a photograph as the process to come to that image is as remote to photography as could be. But the software allows us to see the data as if it were a photograph, because that is how the data is most understandable to us (untrained us, that is; radiologists may be of a different opinion): computational photography.