Are the calibration movies photo-edited?

[jsellers]

I have a suspicion that the calibration movies containing examples of a track are edited to appear so. Maybe I'm crazy, but the graininess around the tracks doesn't ever seem to fit with the surrounding aerogel, and the tracks are earily similar. Could it be that a few archetypal examples have been pasted onto many 'empty' movies--just to create some variety? Does anyone else agree, or even care?

[icebike]

I have a suspicion that the calibration movies containing examples of a track are edited to appear so. Maybe I'm crazy, but the graininess around the tracks doesn't ever seem to fit with the surrounding aerogel, and the tracks are earily similar. Could it be that a few archetypal examples have been pasted onto many 'empty' movies--just to create some variety? Does anyone else agree, or even care?

I've often thought they may have been 'Shopped a bit myself, but I assumed they had very few real tracks detected when they made the training and calibration movies, so they cut and pasted the few tracks the did have into different locations of other movies to make more examples, resizing and adjusting as they went. You can often see a pixel aura around the tracks in training movies that does not appear in the few real ones I've found (or think i've found).

The exif information encoded into the image all say AppleMark so I some processing on some (or all) images may have been done with a mac.

What I find odd about the CMs is that the tracks all seem to start below the surface layer. If your suspicions are correct this would be because they started the manipulation on that layer and went deeper, leaving the top layers alone.

But its not explained how the particle passed thru the top layers without leaving a trail.

[mwhiz]

@icebike: here's a shot at why the trail starts below the surface:

a tiny particle hits the surface and leaves a tiny entry hole. however, the aerogel it hits spreads out in a sort of cone which makes the wide area of the impact trail while the particle slows down. as it slows down the width of the track shrinks and eventually just becomes a sort of "spike" in the gel.

at least that's my understanding.

[icebike]

@icebike: here's a shot at why the trail starts below the surface:

Sounds reasonable, Sort of like that ballistic jelly police use to trap bullets without damaging them for analysis.

I would have expected some surface markings to show up.

[mwhiz]

i wouldn't expect it to be any bigger than the particle... however big that is.

[jsellers]

Was this a case of photoshopping, or does this mean that we all missed the boat?

Look who's laughing now

[DustBuster]

Yes. There were no 'actual' movies to use as calibration movies at the start (other than the tutorial- which consists primarily of samples from other collection projects) There are hundreds (?) of calibration movies that had to be prepared.

I suspect that as soon as there is a verified sample, they will start showing up in the calibration movies- but that will take some time.