Norm Dresner wrote:
> I know that the sequences on crime shows like CSI where they take a
> small section of a blurry image, usually comprising fewer than a
> dozen pixels, and "sharpen" that to a full license plate number or
> window sticker are pure fiction.

Those shows annoy the hell out of me.
The worst one I ever saw was where some cops were looking at a photo of
somebody walking through a town with a carrier bag full of stuff.
On one side of the bag was the logo of the shop it came from, but they
needed to know the name and address of the shop, so the cops asked the
computer geek guy to rotate the photo and enhance the details on the other
(hidden) side of the bag - the side facing away from the camera.
Some typing tok place - no mouse work or graphics tablet - all command line
stuff.
Then we saw an animation involving a wireframe 3D model of the entire scene
which rotated through 180degrees so we're now looking at it from theother
side. Then it was rendered over with a badly pixelised image.
"Can you clean that up a bit?" asked the cop.
"Sure" said the geek as he started typing again - never touched the mouse,
graphics tablet, space bar, number pad or enter key. He just randomly mashed
his fingers over the keyboard.
Then suddenly, the pixels resolved themselves into a crisp clear photograph
showing the opposite side of the bag. The side that was facing away from the
camera. The side that could not possibly have been photographed.
And to the cops immense pleasure, there was a name, address, and telephone
number printed on that side of the bag.

I swear, I threw things at my TV and shouted so loud it scared the dog.