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Night Vision Optimizing Your Thermal Imager

IR-V

Sergeant
Full Member
Minuteman
Feb 22, 2011
294
8
72
I've just returned from presenting to an engineering college at a defense university. The topic of my lecture was on the technology variables key to advancing image quality and imaging performance on portable, thermal sensing equipment:

1) Lens system
2) Core resolution and sensitivity (at nominal capture rate of 30 Hz or higher)
3) Processing power
4) Display resolution

Thermal core (or microbolometer) technology in portable sensors are advancing more rapidly in the area of pitch reduction. In the past couple of years, there have been progressive and rapid reductions from 25 micron, to 17 micron, to 12 micron pitch in production cores. However, the resolution of these cores largely remains in within 640x480 to 640x512, and their thermal sensitivity between 50 - 55 mK.

Until there is a 2x - 4x increase in matrix density, which is 50% to 100% increase in core resolution, advances in other technologies in the image capture and processing "critical path" can be leveraged to dramatically improve thermal image quality and thermal imager performance. Furthermore, enhancement in these other attributes (#1, #3, #4 above) will also compliment and enhance any improvements in the core technology (#1), which means that they are investments that will not be quickly obsoleted by performance advancements in the thermal core.

In layman's terms, this means that with "other" system upgrades, a 640x480 / 25 micron / 50 mK / 30 Hz thermal core produced in 2008 can easily match or surpass the performance of current production "thermal scopes" using 17 and even 12 micron cores.

To demonstrate this, I showcased the performance from a cllip-on, thermal weapon scope with 640x480 / 25 micron / 50 mK / 30 Hz / Vanadium Oxide core that was produced in 2008, but which had been surplussed due to damage to the lens and display systems ... and which I had upgraded with the following:

1) 150mm (objective) lens system with internal, variable magnification (1-20x). Note that while the outboard magnification of the day scope can be used, the enhancement is the non-digital, variable magnification to the lens system itself. The purpose of the variable, internal magnification is to afford adjustment of the field of view at the raw input level, not at the digital signal processing end. [Equipment Investment = $6,000]

2) Incorporation of an on-board, 2GHz, A8 processor with 4 GB Flash RAM, and a proprietary, lightweight operating system (that I'm coining as 'IR-X') coded and compiled in C/C++. [Equipment Investment = $950]

3) Image management software, optimized for the processor, to apply color palette and edge detection ONLY -- NO other image enhancements which could alter the thermographic accuracy of the heat signature data, slow the processing, and increase the processor's power consumption. [Investment = Labor]

4) VARIABLE interpolation of the 640x480 core input to the following digital, display outputs: 2048x1536, 1704x960, and 1024x768. This is key to optimizing performance with outboard magnification of the image, as any display at 640x480 or 640x512 (regardless of the lens size of the scope) can only be magnified (on currently available LED/OLED mini-display technology) to around 6x before pixelation sets in. [Equipment Investment = $750]

Some actual images from the above system are shown below, taken at a distance of 220 yards (between scope and viewing subject / target), at 15x internal magnification (with no outboard magnification), using a composite "black-hot" and "fire and ice" palette with reverse highlight on edge presentation, and outputting with interpolation to 2048x1536. This is a portable, small-arms mountable system ...

IR-V

Note that the subject is REMOTELY viewing and controlling the output of the thermal imager from a wireless, mobile device while imaging himself. Note the sensing of the heat differences of the vascular system through the subject's skin, and of the subject's upper, right arm through the fabric of his short sleeve.

w01w1.jpg


Note thermal detail of the subject's vascular system (of arteries and veins) captured from 220 yards distance ...

bhcec3.jpg


Note how the sensor is able to capture the increases in the amount of heat emitted, in both his arm and its vascular structure, as a result of the subject "exerting" his arm muscles by flexing them and increasing the blood flow. Though the fire (red) and ice (blue) color hues separate warm and cool surfaces at a user-adjustable, mid-point threshold; gradients of warm-hot are from red-white (warm) to red-black (warmest) ...

20uqwhu.jpg
 
Awesome! I was just thinking about you the other day and wondering what you've been up to, it is always a great lesson for me when you post the projects you are working on! Thanks a bunch....
 
Awesome! I was just thinking about you the other day and wondering what you've been up to, it is always a great lesson for me when you post the projects you are working on! Thanks a bunch....

Thank you for your kind words, SkyPup -- it is always a pleasure to share the latest with you. I greatly / deeply respect your professional background / career and expertise in the sciences and engineering also. This latest project has taken a lot of my available cycles, as I rolled up my sleeves to work (code) the software in addition to the hardware engineering. I'm getting longer in tooth, and not having the quick mind and infinite memory of my youth, I found myself slowed down considerably by having to "look up" so many functions instead of having them and their parameters at the "fingertips" of my mind. Then there's all the governance red-tape to get through ... for example, I have to integrate the encryption / authentication for securing the wireless communications (for my imaging system) before I can continue on to the rest of my objectives for this project! ;-)

IR-V
 
Very cool IR-V! It makes my brain hurt a little to read your posts because it is not used to taking in that much info at once, but I can easily forgive you.
 
Very cool IR-V! It makes my brain hurt a little to read your posts because it is not used to taking in that much info at once, but I can easily forgive you.

Thanks for appreciating, Delta4-3, and for forgiving me for my verbose posts! I usually have several, run-on sentences in rapid succession before I crash and let the photos finish the explaining! :)

IR-V
 
Thank you for your kind words, SkyPup -- it is always a pleasure to share the latest with you. I greatly / deeply respect your professional background / career and expertise in the sciences and engineering also. This latest project has taken a lot of my available cycles, as I rolled up my sleeves to work (code) the software in addition to the hardware engineering. I'm getting longer in tooth, and not having the quick mind and infinite memory of my youth, I found myself slowed down considerably by having to "look up" so many functions instead of having them and their parameters at the "fingertips" of my mind. Then there's all the governance red-tape to get through ... for example, I have to integrate the encryption / authentication for securing the wireless communications (for my imaging system) before I can continue on to the rest of my objectives for this project! ;-)

IR-V

IR-V,

Don't tell me you think your getting old! Not a chance....:D
 
Holy cow man you need to write a book. Or maybe a series of books. The fact that those images are 220 yards distant is bordering on otherworldly. I consider my LWTS to be absolutely spectacular, but that is horse of a different color. Wow. In case you ever grow weary of one of your inventions I'd love to write you a check :)

ETA: I'm now imagining my LWTS w/ a 150mm 1-20x variable analog magnification lens on it. It would be unstoppable.
 
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Really nice work! for image management software/edge detection did you code your own interface or use a premade one? I am working on a similar project and wondered about that.

Thank you, 10p5s. I coded everything from scratch, including the lightweight operating system. I also developed my own algorithms.

IR-V
 
Holy cow man you need to write a book. Or maybe a series of books. The fact that those images are 220 yards distant is bordering on otherworldly. I consider my LWTS to be absolutely spectacular, but that is horse of a different color. Wow. In case you ever grow weary of one of your inventions I'd love to write you a check :)

ETA: I'm now imagining my LWTS w/ a 150mm 1-20x variable analog magnification lens on it. It would be unstoppable.

Hello Cake5150,

Thank you for your kind words, and for your encouragement to write / publish.

Your ETA is right on track. Full modularization of all the [thermal imaging] subsystems will bring more performance "power" and value to the consumer, and sooner!

IR-V
 
I bought my first thermal this year. Although I don't post much, I appreciate the knowledge IR-V is sharing with us. Very informative!

Thank you for appreciating, shurt! I appreciate very much your kind words. Congratulations on your first thermal imager purchase! I hope it does for you, what it does for me -- as a gateway, opening doors to and exciting, new paths for exploring an endlessly fascinating, "other" dimension.

IR-V