NEC has developed of super-resolution technologies for fine magnification of surveillance camera images, including persons' faces and license plates.

Until now, existing technologies required numerous still images from a video in order to improve a subject's resolution and enable its magnification. However, these images blur when magnified by more than 2 or 3 times (4 to 9 times the number of pixels).

NEC claims that its new technologies create a super-resolution image from just one shot of a subject, such as a person's face or a car's license plate, by utilizing a database (library) of categorized images. This enables images to maintain fine details even when magnified by more than 4 times (more than 16 times the number of pixels), making it possible to distinguish small and distant subjects, which was difficult with conventional technologies. These new technologies are expected to be applied with surveillance cameras that cover such large areas as airports or traffic intersections.