Generation of thermal images from visible images

Abstract

Techniques for generating image data of a modality different from a visible light modality are discussed herein. For example, visible light images may be readily available for training and testing vehicle systems, but corresponding image data of a thermal modality may not be available. In examples, one or more trained machine learning (ML) models may be used to generate synthetic thermal images based on an input visible light image. Such ML models may be trained, based on a training dataset including metadata and semantic segmentation associated with visible light images, to determine an appearance of the output synthetic thermal images. In some examples, an emittance level of regions of the synthetic thermal image may be further adjusted based on information associated with the respective region. The synthetic thermal images may be used for simulation and training of vehicle systems to interpret thermal imagery.