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every good group of retirees gets

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together at brookside golf course in Los

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Angeles California bill graham has been

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a golfer for years and is used to

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playing with handicaps but he now plays

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with a different kind a severe loss of

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central vision caused by age-related

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macular degeneration the disease's

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claimed a center portion of his eyesight

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we're fine details are recognized before

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the condition of X 1 out of 5 americans

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over the age of 75 right there

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at the first team a friend helps line up

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the shot bill has to rely upon his

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peripheral vision he sees something like

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every day activities like crossing a

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busy intersection are difficult with

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macular degeneration and reading a

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newspaper is nearly impossible to date

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there is no cure for the disease just

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measures to keep it in check but dr.

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Terry Lawton of NASA's Jet Propulsion

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Laboratory in Pasadena California is

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working on an image filtering technique

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next that helps people read it's

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something people aren't used to doing

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looking off to the side to be able to

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read but that's where their best vision

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is now and these filters make it so that

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they can read two or four times faster

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this is an example of an unfiltered

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versus of filtered word using a closed

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circuit viewer dr. Lawton measures the

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number of correct responses given by mr.

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Graham during a test that mixes filtered

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and unfiltered sentences the dogs swam

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in the water and played all day the

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digitally processed words actually

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appear less readable for someone with

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normal sight the reality is it is more

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blurred where terlatin is doing is not

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creating a crisp sharp edge but with her

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filters she's creating enhancement of

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contrast and even though you don't need

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that enhancement so you see the blurring

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that she's creating the person who has

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certain losses needs the contrast more

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than they need a sharpness of the edge

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and they see better with this I want you

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to tell me each one of these circles

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standard I testing until recently never

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measured an individual sensitivity to

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contrast which is how well various

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patterns are seen from light to dark dr.

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Lawton has developed the system that

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very accurately measures this ability by

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hitting buttons mr. Graham tells a

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computer whether he sees the pattern on

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a screen slant to the right or left the

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technology pinpoints his best level of

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contrast sensitivity which then gets

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translated into the way words are shaded

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or filtered eventually closed circuit

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viewers will be on the market that

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magnify and filter words

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with a long did Jules contrast that to

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hear the birch as a result of the

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research dr. Lawton sees potential in

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using this image processing technique

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for a future Mars rover vision system it

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would assist in negotiating Boulder

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fields such as this photographed by an

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early Martian probe called Viking the

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filtering acts to highlight individual

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boulders in the same way it uses

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contrast to emphasize the shape of

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letters in a word thus pinpointing

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obstacles for the rover to avoid NASA's

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human factors research and its ties to