Comparison of thermal (FLIR) and television imagesThe human eye is sensitive to electromagnetic radiation in the 0.4 to 0.7 micron band (light). Thermal imaging (TI) systems are sensitive to heat radiation in the infrared band (3-5 or 8-14 microns) and are capable of transforming the distribution of relative temperatures in a scene into a visible TV image. The present experiment was designed to investigate the impact of the difference between TIs and regular TV images on the detection and identification of natural and man-made targets. Parallel TV and TI videotapes were recorded during helicopter flights. Fifteen subjects who viewed both the TV and the TI images (separately), were asked to detect predefined targets and to identify features pointed out to them by the experimenter. In general, performance with TVs was superior to performance with TIs in terms of response times and errors. However, subjects required significantly less time to detect man-made objects with TIs than with TVs. The correlation between the performance of the same task with the two kinds of images was very low. The results are discussed in terms of image quality and in terms of humans' internal representations of natural categories.
Document ID
19900039157
Acquisition Source
Legacy CDMS
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Brickner, Michael S. (NASA Ames Research Center Moffett Field, CA, United States)
Staveland, Lowell E. (San Jose State University Foundation, CA, United States)
Date Acquired
August 14, 2013
Publication Date
January 1, 1989
Subject Category
Man/System Technology And Life Support
Meeting Information
Meeting: International Symposium on Aviation Psychology