Chief Slabinski said he wondered whether the Air Force was motivated as much by hopes of receiving its first Medal of Honor since the Vietnam War as by a desire to fully understand what transpired on the mountain. (Since the Sept. 11 attacks, 12 Army soldiers, three Marines and three SEALs have received the medal for gallantry in Iraq or Afghanistan.)

A briefing prepared by Air Force special operations officials dismisses as “not viable” Colonel Milani’s suggestion that the gunfight caught on video by the C.I.A. Predator might have involved militants fighting one another, according to people who have received it. That the airman was alive and fighting “is fully supported by the evidence,” the briefing slides state.

The use of the imagery-enhancement technology to scrutinize the Predator video was central to the findings, particularly when combined with footage, from an AC-130 gunship, that had not been available to Colonel Milani. As the drone circled more than 6,500 feet above the peak, trees and other objects impeded its view, and it had trouble staying locked on to the men in the fight.

The imagery technology, still being refined in an Air Force lab, enabled the service to assign each person in the blurry videos a “pixel signature” based on his size, his clothing and the weapons he carried, people who have been briefed said. By identifying Sergeant Chapman shortly after he stepped out of the helicopter with the SEALs, the briefing slides say, its imagery analysts could follow him around the mountaintop, picking him up even when trees or other obstacles partly obscured him.

Outside experts familiar with the technology said having video footage from the gunship as well as from the Predator drone would have provided the analysts with more tracking angles and clarity.

“That’s two different eyes, and they could fuse that together,” said David J. Kriegman, a computer science professor at the University of California, San Diego, who has done research in this area.

Based on the analysis, the Air Force believes that Sergeant Chapman was unconscious when Chief Slabinski thought he was dead. The sergeant regained consciousness and began engaging enemy fighters in three directions, the slides suggest.