The scientific brain behind LYYN is Dr. Olle Holm, a Malmö-area ophthalmology who has explored the science of photogrammetry ever since 1968. For years, Holm sought to develop an imaging technique that could help detect the early stages of diabetes, glaucoma and age-related macular degeneration: all potentially blinding diseases.

Olle Holm's breakthrough came thanks to developments in high-tech digital imagery throughout the 1990's. Holm and his son, the physicist Anders Holm, then began working with mathematical algorithms to develop a software programme that, instead of making photographic pictures as "natural" as possible (as traditional digital cameras do) could distort an image to make it deliberately "unnatural," amplifying selected features in the picture. He tested the software on a roll of particularly disappointing vacation photos, and found that it worked just as effectively in filtering the effects of darkness, water or bad weather conditions. A crossover success was born.

In 2003, Holm founded LYYN together with former IT executive Andreas Ekengren and marketing whiz Fredrik Beckman, to introduce this pioneering image enhancement technology to a wider audience. LYYN's application is available in three versions: a photo-image processor, which can take poor-quality photos and remove impurities, a video processor and a real-time processor that plugs directly into a camera.

Real-time application

"In the future, this kind of image enhancement technology may be used for surface analysis, to locate offshore oil sources, or find meat that's gone bad in a slaughterhouse. Our investors have a broad range of experiences, so new ideas are cropping up all the time," explained Fredrik Beckman.

"The real-time application can provide high-precision images for surveillance cameras, underwater construction sites, or be affixed to a robot and remove any disturbance between the object and the video camera - whether it's underwater algae or smoke in a tunnel," Beckman said.

LYYN's technology was recently tested in underwater search efforts leading up to the salvaging of a Cold War-era DC-3 plane shot down over the Baltic Sea. But in addition to search and recovery operations after disasters, LYYN technology may even be capable of preventing future accidents. Airport control towers may use LYYN technology during foggy weather conditions to increase visibility - and divert potentially fatal accidents on the runway. By adding feature recognition functionality to LYYN's existing software, air traffic controllers could automatically recognise incoming aircraft - a safety necessity in today's post-9/11 world.

"This could very well be part of a larger movement in s'crossover' science," Fredrik Beckman explained. "You take eye and brain expertise from the medical field, a knowledge of optics from the world of electro-physics, and some more or less weird people from IT and mobile telephony, and new things are bound to emerge.”

 This article was originally published by Øresund IT Magasine (nr. 5 - 2004). You can download the magazine in PDF format on Publications.

*Rebecca Engmann is an American journalist living in Copenhagen.