Sasquatch
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- Oct 23, 2012
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Often digital image evidence obtained, is not 100 percent clear. There can be motion blur, intentional blur (Google Maps Faces & License Plates) or just plain out of focus blur. Sometimes screen captures from a surveillance cam or Google Maps might be out of focus and you can not obtain the information that you need. Your option on Google Maps, is to usually to take a screen capture and pull it into Photoshop or another editing program, and try to isolate the details. Not everyone has access to higher end photo editing software to try to unblur the images. Now a programmer and image processing expert, named Vladimir Yuzhikov, has developed a Freeware program called SmartDeblur. Yes it is Free, under the GNU GPLv3 license, to use and share with your friends at no cost(it is not a trial version). Its main design is to unblur images based on an algorithm. Adobe has created similar software, but of course that does cost money. SmartDeblur is Free and downloadable now!
Either click the file name or Scroll all the way to the bottom of the page under Download and choose either Windows(SmartDeblur-1.27-win.zip) or Mac (SmartDeblur-1.27-mac.dmg) . Here is some info and the download link:
https://github.com/gibbonweb/SmartDeblur
Another Petapixel link explaining what Smartdeblur can do:
http://www.petapixel.com/2012/10/21/smartdeblur-does-science-fiction-esque-enhancing-on-blurry-photos/
Here is a sample image from Petapixel on what Smartdeblur can do.
Here is a screenshot from Petapixel showing what the program looks like:
I have personally downloaded the Mac version, Smartdeblur 1.27, of this program. Although it might still be in the developing stage (I did get a few crashes on large images) it seems like a real promising tool to clean up Google Map image captures as well as other sleuthing evidence that might be too blurry. I feel that as a sleuthing tool, it can be helpful in unblurring numbers on a house, license plates, logos and possibly even a face. I don't expect it to create miracles, because on the lower resolution images, you have only so much information to work with. But with higher resolution images, this tool might be a little bit more promising. I am going back to some of the blurry images that I captured on Google Maps and try to clear up some more details. Hopefully I can pull some more clues out of the photos.
Sometimes LE has the ability to request images from Google that do not have a blurred face or license plate. This request does not happen instantaneously. For example, in the UK, an 11 year old boy found a thief stealing the family caravan on the Google Maps Street View, but LE could not get the unblurred license plate data for almost a year. It took a total of three years to finally get the suspect, because he had sold his tow truck by then.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2192959/Picture-spotted-11-year-old-boy-Google-street-view-leads-suspect-arrested-THREE-YEARS-caravan-theft.html
I hope this program can help everyone find more details on their Google Maps screen captures, security video and on various other images, to help find clues and solve cases.
Either click the file name or Scroll all the way to the bottom of the page under Download and choose either Windows(SmartDeblur-1.27-win.zip) or Mac (SmartDeblur-1.27-mac.dmg) . Here is some info and the download link:
https://github.com/gibbonweb/SmartDeblur
Another Petapixel link explaining what Smartdeblur can do:
http://www.petapixel.com/2012/10/21/smartdeblur-does-science-fiction-esque-enhancing-on-blurry-photos/
Here is a sample image from Petapixel on what Smartdeblur can do.
Here is a screenshot from Petapixel showing what the program looks like:
I have personally downloaded the Mac version, Smartdeblur 1.27, of this program. Although it might still be in the developing stage (I did get a few crashes on large images) it seems like a real promising tool to clean up Google Map image captures as well as other sleuthing evidence that might be too blurry. I feel that as a sleuthing tool, it can be helpful in unblurring numbers on a house, license plates, logos and possibly even a face. I don't expect it to create miracles, because on the lower resolution images, you have only so much information to work with. But with higher resolution images, this tool might be a little bit more promising. I am going back to some of the blurry images that I captured on Google Maps and try to clear up some more details. Hopefully I can pull some more clues out of the photos.
Sometimes LE has the ability to request images from Google that do not have a blurred face or license plate. This request does not happen instantaneously. For example, in the UK, an 11 year old boy found a thief stealing the family caravan on the Google Maps Street View, but LE could not get the unblurred license plate data for almost a year. It took a total of three years to finally get the suspect, because he had sold his tow truck by then.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2192959/Picture-spotted-11-year-old-boy-Google-street-view-leads-suspect-arrested-THREE-YEARS-caravan-theft.html
I hope this program can help everyone find more details on their Google Maps screen captures, security video and on various other images, to help find clues and solve cases.
