Digital Home Thoughts: Russell Kirsch: Pixels With Variable Shapes Are Better Than Square Ones

"Did you know that we're only 53 years removed from the very first digital image? .... [B]ack in the monochromatic 1950s,... Russell Kirsch became the first man to create a digital picture, by scanning in a photo of his baby son. Now, half a century wiser, Russell is back to apologize for introducing that cursed square pixel into our lives, and to try to remedy all the jagged little edges we've been seeing on our screens ever since."

For those of us in the USA, July 4th is when we look back to the birth of our nation. This seems a natural time, therefore, to look back at the birth of a technology that impacts nearly all of our daily lives: digital imaging, for which Russell Kirsch is given credit (history buffs should read "SEAC and the Start of Image Processing at the National Bureau of Standards" for a summary). Engadget's brief post includes a copy of the first digital image Russell created in 1957, along with recent images that illustrate the difference between traditional square pixels (above, left) and the variable shaped pixels (above, right) that Kirsch now promotes. But for an understanding of Kirsch's proposal, the interested reader must refer to his 2010 paper, "Precision and Accuracy in Scientific Imaging," wherein he explains the usage of his 6 x 6 pixel mask, and demonstrates that increased precision (as represented by more pixels) does not always equal increased accuracy.