MULTICAMERA HIGH DYNAMIC RANGE HIGH-SPEED VIDEO OF ROCKET ENGINE TESTS AND LAUNCHES.DURING THIS EFFORT WE PROPOSE TO BORESIGHT THREE TO FOUR GFE HIGH DEFINITION (HD) RGB (COLOR) CAMERAS. WITH THE ADVENT OF SENSORS WITH MORE INTRINSIC DYNAMIC RANGE THIS ARRANGEMENT COULD PROVIDE HIGHER QUALITY AND LONGER IMAGE ACQUISITIONS AS COMPARED TO THE STS-134 AND STS-135 IMAGERY IN COLOR AND WITH FEWER CAMERAS. WE WILL DESIGN AND CONSTRUCT A CUSTOM CAMERA MOUNT AND DEVELOP A CUSTOM SOFTWARE WORKFLOW TO FUSE RAW BAYER ARRAY IMAGERY INTO COLOR HDR IMAGERY. WE WILL DEMONSTRATE THIS TECHNOLOGY IN A LABORATORY ENVIRONMENT USING A QUARTZ TUNGSTEN HALOGEN LAMP TO SIMULATE A BRIGHT ROCKET PLUME WITH A DARK BACKGROUND. THE TECHNOLOGY DEMONSTRATOR WILL USE ~125 HZ 10 BIT VIDEO SAMPLING TO DEMONSTRATE THE WORKFLOW AND VIDEO PROCESSING TECHNIQUES. MULTICAMERA CAMERA SYNCHRONIZATION AND SOFTWARE BASED IMAGE STABILIZATION WILL BE EVALUATED. THE MULTICAMERA DATA STREAMS WILL BE TRANSMITTED AND STORED ON A WINDOWS OPERATING SYSTEM COMPUTER WITH SOLID STATE DRIVES. USING A 10 GIGE INTERFACE FROM THE CAMERA AND AN OPTICAL FIBER WE EXPECT TO BE ABLE TO PLACE THE STORAGE DEVICE IN A DESKTOP COMPUTER AT A DISTANCE OF 25 M OR GREATER FROM THE CAMERAS.MILESTONE 1: MULTICAMERA HDR IMAGING SYSTEM DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION GFE EMERGENT HS-2000C CAMERAS WILL BE USED TO GENERATE THE INTRINSIC LOW DYNAMIC RANGE IMAGING IN THIS DESIGN. THIS CAMERA IS A 2048 X 1088 PIXEL CMOS ARRAY THAT HAS THE SOFTWARE AND ELECTRONICS INTERFACE TO SUPPORT AUTOMATION. AS PART OF THIS FIRST TASK I2R WILL REVIEW AND REFINE THE LONG RANGE IMAGING REQUIREMENTS. DESIGN PARAMETERS INCLUDING SCENE DYNAMIC RANGE IMAGING FRAME RATE DATA STORAGE DISTANCE TO TARGET AND EXPECTED ENVIRONMENTAL OPERATING CONDITIONS SUCH AS ACCELERATION FORCES AND TEMPERATURE WILL BE EVALUATED AND DEFINED. ONCE THE IMAGING REQUIREMENTS ARE DEFINED THE HDR IMAGING SYSTEM WILL BE DESIGNED. MILESTONE 2: CAMERA INTEGRATION AND TESTING ALL ASPECTS REQUIRED TO INTEGRATE THE GFE EMERGENT HS-2000C CAMERAS INTO THE IMAGING PLATFORM WILL BE CONDUCTED DURING THIS TASK. CAMERA INTEGRATION WILL INCLUDE PROVIDING APPROPRIATE MECHANICAL AND ELECTRICAL INTERFACES TO OPERATE THE CAMERA PROVIDING APPROPRIATE THERMAL COOLING CHECKING ALL COMPUTER AND SOFTWARE INTERFACES AND VERIFYING CAMERA FIELD OF VIEW AND EXPECTED GROUND SAMPLE DISTANCE. AS PART OF THIS TASK THE CAMERA WILL BE FUNCTIONALLY TESTED WITHIN THE IMAGING PLATFORM. ANY ISSUES THAT ARISE AS A RESULT WILL BE ADDRESSED.MILESTONE 3: CAMERA CALIBRATION AND SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT DURING THIS TASK I2R WILL DEVELOP A COLOR HDR ALGORITHM SPECIFIC TO THE HARDWARE DESIGN AND EXPECTED IMAGING REQUIREMENTS. THE HDR ALGORITHM WILL BE AN EXTENSION TO THE ONE DEVELOPED IN A PREVIOUS NASA DUAL USE PROJECT. THE ALGORITHM WILL UTILIZE UP TO FOUR DIFFERENT CAMERA EXPOSURE SETTINGS. THE CODE WILL BE DEVELOPED USING MATLAB A HIGHLY CAPABLE SCRIPTING LANGUAGE WITH EXTENSIVE LIBRARIES AND DEBUGGING TOOLS. SEVERAL MATLAB TOOLBOXES WILL LIKELY BE EMPLOYED. TO INCREASE THE USABILITY OF THE MATLAB SOFTWARE A MATLAB EXECUTABLE WILL BE GENERATED. THIS WILL ENABLE NASA AND OTHER COMMERCIAL CUSTOMERS TO EXECUTE THE SOFTWARE ON COMPUTERS THAT DO NOT HAVE MATLAB LICENSES. AS PART OF THIS TASK I2R WILL PERFORM A RADIOMETRIC AND GEOMETRIC CALIBRATION OF THE EMERGENT HS-2000C HIGH SPEED VIDEO CAMERAS. THE RADIOMETRIC CALIBRATION WILL INCLUDE A STATIC AND DYNAMIC DARK FRAME ASSESSMENT FLAT FIELDING A DEMOSAICKING ASSESSMENT AND A WHITE BALANCE. CAMERA FOCUS WILL BE EVALUATED AND FRAME TO FRAME CO-REGISTRATION WILL BE ASSESSED. EXTENSIVE I2R MATLAB-BASED IMAGE DE-NOISING ALGORITHMS WILL BE TAILORED AND REFINED FOR THIS HDR APPLICATION TO IMPROVE IMAGE QUALITY. MILESTONE 4: TEST AND EVALUATION THE COLOR HDR IMAGING SYSTEM WILL BE TESTED AND EVALUATED IN A LABORATORY SETTING USING A BRIGHT SOURCE SURROUNDED BY DARK STRUCTURE/BACKGROUND. THE HDR IMAGING SYSTEM WILL BE PLACED