In 1999, Carole Sund, 42, her daughter Juli, 15, and Silvina Pelosso were visiting Yosemite Park when they were kidnapped and killed by an employee of the motel where they were staying. At that time, news reports of the search for them mentioned a ground search and an air search. Eventually, the ground search found their car, burned and abandoned in the forest outside of Yosemite Park.

I thought that aerial searches, for certain terrain, could be enhanced and made more efficient if imagery could be used. Later in 1999, I began a long project to modify the software to locate any particular color in an image

I worked on improving the software, tweaking and adding features, off and on for about 5 years. By 2005, I decided to complete my project with a major effort and then see if it might help save lives.

The Software:
To be useful, Albedo Safety Software © must have aerial images of the search area. That image collection must be done by others, such as a satellite imagery company, news helicopters with gimbal mounted cameras, Sheriff's Search and Rescue aircraft or perhaps volunteer SAR aircraft. Image collection alone is a major undertaking; and must be done with adequate lighting and with appropriate resolution.

Others must choose and furnish a color(s) to search for in the images. Those "search colors" might be: color of an automobile, aircraft, snowboard, clothing. The "search colors" can be 'lifted' from old images of the subject or object or may simply be guessed.

The Software can identify and locate, in the image, as little as one pixel of the color searched for. The software has adjustments to define the narrowness of the color search. Too narrow and you might miss the object in an image. Less narrow and you might generate false hits in the image.

There are more than 16 million (2^24) unique colors which can be found in a typical digital photograph. A typical digital photo contains around 300,000 pixels (low resolution) to 15 million or more (high resolution). Albedo Safety Software © can quickly find and locate as little as 1 pixel of the color searched for, in a digital image. If the color exists in an image, Albedo Safety Software© can locate the exact color or can identify colors which are close in color to the exact color sought. We believe the software can find a color in an image in those situations where human observers are unable to do so. In some situations, this might enable searchers to locate otherwise unseen subjects.

The Main program module scans, automatically, ALL Images (unlimited number) placed in directory in STEP 1. Then the Program, automatically, informs the operator of how many 'Hits' (if any) of the color searched for (for Each Image). Each 'Hit' is clearly identified with Image x-y coordinates as well as drawing a large Circle around each 'Hit' (and can be viewed or printed). The Program can analyze 1 Image or thousands of Images (during one Program 'run'). No time is wasted looking at Images with No 'Hits'.

We believe Albedo Safety Software© is still absolutely unique.

Tragedies:
In November, 2006 James Kim and family became lost in a car trip through southern Oregon. His family was eventually found. Sadly, Mr. Kim lost his life. The missing car was located before high tech aerial search efforts were established.

In January 2007, Jim Gray, founder and manager of Microsoft's Bay Area Research Center departed in a sailboat from San Francisco Bay and neither the sailboat nor Mr. Gray was ever seen again.

In September, 2007, Steve Fossett, pilot, businessman and adventurer, borrowed a friend's single engine aircraft for a short sightseeing trip. He departed from a northern Nevada desert private air strip and disappeared. Mr. Fossett's remains and the downed aircraft (smashed head-on into a mountainside) were found by a hiker in October, 2008 in Madera County, near Mammoth Lakes, California.

In 2007, massive searches were undertaken trying to find Mr. Gray and Mr. Fossett. News reports indicated that massive search efforts were conducted by others (including law enforcement and U.S.Coast Guard) and assisted by Amazon, Digital Globe, GeoEye, Google, Microsoft and hundreds of volunteers evaluating ground and sea images on their computer screens. News reports indicated that visual screening of images of northern Nevada and of the Pacific Ocean were unable to locate either missing subject.

I regret that my efforts, during this period, to successfully locate any contact to try the Software were unsuccessful.

The Future:
For small search efforts (say 100 square miles or less) one person and one computer would probably be all that is needed (where images are gathered by others) to assist in the search.  But for large, massive searches, because of the need for required resources (manpower,  funding and image acquisition & management) , I believe it would require a  large corporation with resources; such as Amazon, Digital Globe, GeoEye, Google, Microsoft, Axsys or other.  Perhaps I need to consider passing on the whole package (source code, etc.) in a common business transaction.   We continue to believe the Software can save lives.