Image processing strategies and multiple paths toward solutions

At the National Ignition Facility (NIF), the world’s largest most energetic laser facility with over 40,000 optics, image processing algorithms are essential to position 192 laser beams onto a mm scale fusion target. In its most general sense, an image processing algorithm consists of a series of steps which produce a desired outcome. When humans set out to solve specific tasks, they often exploit their own experience and intuition by decomposing the problem into subproblems. They then apply and develop techniques which are woven together in the end to maximize performance and minimize uncertainty. The fact that many options are available in each of these steps, can lead to a large variety of recipes from which one can choose. Consequently, the chosen solution is not unique, but multiple solutions evolve when combining the multiple choices from each step. The fact that some of the steps are nonlinear gives rise to interesting performance tradeoffs in arriving to the final solution. This paper will explore and illustrate various approaches to solving a specific image processing problem.