Noise reduction and feature enhancement for a thermal imaging camera

Abstract

Thermal cameras, particularly less elaborate inexpensive designs, may deliver high temperature resolution at the expense of less clear displayed images. For many low visibility uses, such as firefighting, it may be advantageous to sacrifice some temperature detail for clarity and object recognition. Without sacrificing the actual detailed temperature information available in a captured scene, it may be beneficial to apply filters in series to raw image data that reduce visible noise and build back in feature contrast for the purposes of providing a user a displayed image that permits ease of object recognition, while still providing the raw data to a thermography module to maintain high resolution of temperature information if desired. In addition, more efficient and useful edge highlighting techniques are disclosed. For very low contrast scenes, such as smoky rooms and the like, other specific filters and equalization methods may be applied.