October 11, 2007

Undersea photography, ancient anatomy, & more

Lots of cool scientific & technical imaging has popped up recently:

• Photoshop’s Twirl filter is no longer a bastion for Internet creeps: The NY Times shares some (but not all) details of how Interpol was able to reverse the common image distortion.  Now they’re seeking the public’s help in catching the guy.  [Via Leon Brown]   (Through some weird cosmic alignment of forces, Google Alerts happened to pop up a tutorial on digitally obscuring faces at just the same time.)
• Photoshop & fish tales: digital imaging & sport fishing don’t go hand in hand, according to BountyFishing.com. The NYT has more info on how these folks worked with Prof. Hany Farid (see previous) to detect misrepresentations. [Via Rob Corell]
• Edited by documentary filmmaker Claire Nouvian, The Deep "features more than 200 photos of the insanely strange and beautiful denizens of our oceans."  Smithsonian.com features a small gallery of the images, plus an article covering the project.
• Nikon’s Small World competition has been honoring terrific microscopic photography for more than 30 years.  Check out a gallery of this year’s winners. [Via]
• It’s fun to compare these modern depictions of the natural world against Arcana Entomologica and the Handbook of Animal Anatomy, both courtesy of BibliOdyssey.
• Elsewhere in the world of archaic technical materials, the National Institutes of Health have posted high-res scans of public domain anatomical atlases.  I used to love incorporating stuff like this into my designs.  (Thanks, dead artists of antiquity!) [Via]
• Science Magazine has announced their 2007 visualization challenge winners.
• NASA’s Cassini probe is sending back detailed pictures of Saturn’s moons.
• One other NASA note: the International Space Station site picked up a 2007 MAX Award from Adobe.  The site features 360-degree views of the inside of several space station modules, and the first update is due to go live tomorrow.