Patent · US Expired

Thermal imaging device

US5682035A · kind A · utility

25Cited by
15References
16Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateSep 6, 1995
Grant dateOct 28, 1997
Priority date
Expiry dateSep 6, 2015

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
  • CPC primaryH04N23/23
  • WIPO fieldAudio-visual technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A thermal infrared imaging device (10) includes a thermal detector (50) having a linearly-arrayed plurality of spaced apart detector elements (50', 50", 50"', . . . ). A scene to be viewed is scanned across the detector (50) with successive fields of the scene shifted according the spacing between adjacent detector elements (50', 50", 50"', . . . ) in order to capture image information for the entire scene by interlacing of successive scan lines from the plurality of detector elements (50', 50", 50"', . . . ). Each complete scan of the viewed scene across the detector (50) creates an image field including a scan line for each detector element (50', 50", 50"', . . . ). Each scan line includes plural pixels, or picture elements of the viewed scene, each having a value indicative of the thermal infrared brightness of the viewed scene at the corresponding location along the scan line. An scan-line sum for each scan line is created by adding the absolute values of the pixel values for each scan line. The average of these scan-line sums is employed as a gain control factor to control the brightness of a visible image replicating the viewed scene. Further, the value of a median of the sca…

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.