07/26/2021 15:00
Clarín.com
Technology
Updated 07/26/2021 3:00 PM
One of the iconic images of the Apollo 11 mission is the one that astronaut Neil Armstrong took from his partner Buzz Aldrin and shows him taking
his first steps on the Moon
.
On the
52nd anniversary of that space event
, an artist managed to recreate what Armstrong, who took the photo, saw at that time through the reflection in the helmet.
Visual effects artist Michael Ranger posted
a 360-degree panorama on
Reddit last week
that records the astronaut's point of view.
Something that no one imagined until then.
To achieve this effect, Ranger obtained a high-resolution copy of the original photo and applied various levels of zoom to Aldrin's visor, treating it as a 360-degree panoramic photo and
processing it in Google Maps Street View
.
The historic photo Neil Armstrong took of astronaut Buzz Aldrin on the lunar surface.
POT
The recreation was possible
thanks to the fact that the helmet and especially the reflective part
, can be considered as a
mirror ball
and from the spherical format, it can be simulated that it is a traditional 2D photograph.
“What makes this process exciting for me is the fact that it is a real event.
If I have any indication that something like this is false, my interest in it completely evaporates.
This is great because it's real! ”Ranger explains.
The reconstruction of the original photo, taken in 1969, Aldrin is standing near the leg of the lunar module 'Eagle' with his left arm curled up, meanwhile,
in the reflection of the visor a shadow is appreciated and the module glows in the light of the Sun.
Through this process, you can also see the full moon landing module and Armstrong
holding the Hasselblad camera at chest level
.
It's even possible to see a fuzzy image of the Earth just above Aldrin's visor.
Aldrin in the calm sea of the moon.Photo NEIL ARMSTRONG / NASA
To discuss the fidelity of the real colors, the artist made some adjustments to the colors of the photographs, starting from the golden references of the helmets and
correcting some false pixels
to give an even greater sense of realism.
Take back the past
This is not the first time an attempt has been made to reveal 'hidden' images from a NASA mission, as last year a film restoration specialist used artificial intelligence to enhance some shots from other space travel in order to offer a Crisp experience of the best moments of the mission.
Through AI a quality of 24 frames per second was achieved to give a more natural look to the recording.
The author of that work goes by the nickname DutchSteamMachine and has enhanced videos of the Apollo 11, Apollo 15 and Apollo 16 moon landings that were shot on 16mm film and achieved 24 frames per second quality to give you a more natural look to the recording.
The technology used by DutchSteamMachine is called DAIN (Depth-Aware video frame INterpolation), which consists of compensating for defects in old videos, such as blurry images, by introducing animated frames in real ones, with the intention that the recording takes place in a more fluid.
For every five minutes of video generated, up to 20 hours of work are required.
"I wanted to provide an experience not seen before in these old images," commented the expert.
SL
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