Edge enhancement for thermal-visible combined images and cameras

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10152811-B2
Application number	US-201514837757-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Aug 27, 2015
Priority date	Aug 27, 2015
Publication date	Dec 11, 2018
Grant date	Dec 11, 2018

Abstract

Systems and methods directed toward combining visible light and infrared images can include processing visible light image data to determine an edge factor value for a plurality of visible light pixels corresponding to the strength of an edge at that location. The edge factor value can be determined using features from the visible light image data and an edge gain input, which may be adjustable by a user. The edge factor values are combined with an edge midscale value to create a first set of modified visible light image data including pixels emphasized based on the strength of the edge in the visible light image. The modified visible light image data is combined with infrared image data to create combined image data having contribution from the infrared image data and the edge factor values from the visible light image data.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A system for combining visible light (VL) and infrared (IR) image data comprising:
a memory for storing one or more sets of VL image data and IR image data, each set of VL and IR image data comprising a plurality of VL and IR image pixels, respectively;
a user interface; and
a processor configured to:
(a) process a first set of VL image data to determine an edge factor value for each pixel in the first set of VL image data based on the VL image data, each edge factor value being representative of the strength of an edge from the VL image data at the corresponding VL pixel;
(b) combine the edge factor value associated with each pixel in the first set of VL image data with an edge midscale value to create a first set of modified VL image data, the edge midscale value corresponding to a specific color; and
(c) combine the first set of modified VL image data with a first set of IR image data that corresponds to the first set of VL image data to generate a first set of combined image data; wherein
the specific color corresponding to the edge midscale value provides added differentiation between the IR image data and the edges from the VL image data in the first set of combined image data.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the edge factor value for each pixel in the first set of VL image data is based on the VL image data and an edge gain input, the edge gain input being adjustable via the user interface, and further comprising a default edge gain input value stored in memory, and wherein, absent an adjustment via the user interface, the edge factor value for each pixel is determined using the default edge gain input value.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein a user may provide input to the processor affecting at least one of the edge factor values, the edge midscale value, and the combining of the modified VL image data and the IR image data.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the IR image data and the VL image data comprise a stream of IR and VL images, respectively, and wherein the processor is configured to generate a video file from the stream of IR and VL image data.

5. The system of claim 1 , further comprising a display configured to display at least a portion of at least one of the VL image data, the modified VL image data, and the IR image data.

6. The system of claim 5 , wherein the processor is capable of generating combined images from the acquired IR and VL image data, and presenting the generated combined images in a substantially real-time video on the display.

7. The system of claim 1 , further comprising an IR camera module for receiving infrared radiation from a scene and generating IR image data representative of the scene and a VL camera module for receiving VL radiation from a scene and generating VL image data representative of the scene; and wherein the processor is further configured to receive IR image data from the IR camera module and to receive VL image data from the VL camera module.

8. The system of claim 7 , further comprising
a display configured to display at least a portion of at least one of the VL image data, modified VL image data, and IR image data; and
a housing enclosing or otherwise supporting the memory, the processor, the user interface, the IR camera module, the VL camera module, and the display.

9. The system of claim 7 further comprising an image acquisition module including the IR camera module and the VL camera module and a processing module comprising the processor and in wireless communication with the image acquisition module.

10. The system of claim 9 , wherein the processing module further comprises the user interface and the display.

11. The system of claim 9 , wherein the processing module includes a smartphone, a tablet, or a standalone computer.

12. The system of claim 1 , wherein the user interface allows a user to select a display mode for presenting image data on the display, the display mode being selectable from VL image data, IR image data, and the combined image data.

13. The system of claim 1 , wherein the user interface allows a user to select a palettization scheme for at least one of the IR image and the modified VL image.

14. The system of claim 1 , wherein the user interface allows a user to select the edge midscale value.

15. The system of claim 1 , wherein combining the first set of modified VL image data with the first set of IR image data comprises blending the modified VL image data with the IR image data, and wherein the amount of contribution from each of the modified VL image data and the IR image data at a given pixel is based on the edge factor value of the associated pixel in the VL image data.

16. The system of claim 1 , wherein the edge midscale value represents gray.

17. The system of claim 16 , wherein the edge midscale value is a scalar value.

18. The system of claim 17 , wherein combining the edge factor value with the edge midscale value comprises adding the edge factor value to the luminance component of the edge midscale value.

19. The system of claim 1 , wherein combining the edge factor value with the edge midscale value comprises adding the edge factor value to each of a red, green, and blue component of the edge midscale value.

20. The system of claim 1 , wherein the edge factor value for each pixel in the first set of VL image data is based on the VL image data and an edge gain input, the edge gain input being adjustable via the user interface, and wherein processing the first set of VL image data comprises performing an embossing process on the first set of VL image data in order to determine an emboss value for each of a plurality of pixels within the VL image data, and wherein determining the edge factor value for each of the plurality of pixels comprising scaling the determined emboss value by the edge gain input.

21. The system of claim 20 , wherein the embossing process comprises:
determining a pseudo-luminance value for each of a second plurality of pixels;
processing the pseudo-luminance values of the second plurality of pixels via a processing kernel to determine the emboss value for at least one pixel associated with the kernel.

22. The system of claim 21 , wherein processing the pseudo-luminance values of the second plurality of pixels comprises determining the difference between pseudo-luminance values of nearby pixels in the second plurality of pixels.

23. The system of claim 1 , wherein the edge factor value for each pixel is determined from a comparison between relative intensities of neighboring pixels and scaled by an edge gain value.

24. A thermal imaging camera configured to generate infrared images having enhanced edges comprising:
an infrared (IR) camera module for receiving IR radiation from a target scene and generating IR image data representative of the target scene;
a visible light (VL) camera module for receiving VL radiation from the target scene and generating VL image data representative of the target scene;
a user interface;
a display; and
a processor in communication with the IR and VL camera modules, the display, and the user interface, the processor configured to:
(a) receive IR image data from the IR camera module, the IR image data comprising a plurality of IR pixels representative of a target scene;
(b) receive VL image data from the VL camera module, the VL image data comprising a plurality of VL pixels representative of the target scene and corresponding to the plurali

Assignees

• Fluke Corp

Inventors

• Johnson Kirk R
• Schmidt Matthew F

Classifications

• G06T2207/10024

  Color image · CPC title

• G06T11/60 Primary

  Creating or editing images; Combining images with text · CPC title

• G06T7/13

  Edge detection · CPC title

• G06T2207/10048

  Infrared image · CPC title

• G06T2207/20221

  Image fusion; Image merging · CPC title