Several experiments will be presented that are part of a phased plan to understand the evolution of detonation in a detonator from initiation shock through run to detonation, to full detonation, to transition, to booster and booster detonation. High‐speed multiframe schlieren imagery has been used to study several explosive initiation events, such as exploding bridgewires (EBWs), exploding foil initiators (EFIs or “slappers”), direct optical initiation (DOI), and electrostatic discharge. Additionally, a series of tests has been performed on “cut‐back” detonators with varying initial pressing heights. We have also used this diagnostic to visualize a range of EBW, EFI, and DOI full‐up detonators. Future applications to other explosive events, such as boosters and insensitive high explosives booster evaluation, will be discussed. The EPIC finite element code has been used to analyze the shock fronts from the schlieren images to solve iteratively for consistent boundary or initial conditions to determine the temporal‐spatial pressure profile across the output face of the detonator.