Video cameras seem to be everywhere these days. For law enforcement officers however, the recordings made on security cameras can often be a mixed blessing. Since the cameras are low-cost and often quite old, and the tapes reused repeatedly, the images can often be frustratingly muddy.

A great leap forward in solving this problem occurred in 1996 as a result of the bombing at the Olympic Games in Atlanta. At the request of the FBI, two NASA scientists, David Hathaway and Paul Meyer, took the skills they had honed studying the Sun and Earth's weather and used them to fight crime.

Their invention, called VISAR, brings order out of video chaos by correcting for a host of camera problems. A computer uses the VISAR software to "wash" the video until it's nearly free of static, blurring from camera movement, and the jagged edges of distant objects.

The software is beginning to see regular use by law enforcement and may soon be available for home computers. And VISAR-equipped camcorders may be hitting the market in a few years, helping users to avoid pretending that their blurry, fuzzy vacation videos are avant garde.