NASA-Developed Software Improves Diagnostic Imaging

Developed by Dr. James Tilton, a computer engineer with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center’s Computational and Information Sciences and Technology Office (Greenbelt, MD), Hierarchical Segmentation (HSEG) software allows for advanced image analysis. Dr. Tilton first began developing hierarchical segmentation technologies in 1983 after becoming familiar with earth sciences and remote sensing in graduate school. During his initial years at NASA, he began to think about image segmentation and analyzing the data beyond the typical “per-pixel” approach, because each pixel did not necessarily provide enough information about where it fit into the overall “scene.” Dr. Tilton theorized that a better understanding could be achieved by considering the context of the image and looking at the objects in the image rather than the individual pixels. This theory ultimately led to the initial version of the core HSEG software algorithm.