Camera that Sees through Smoke and Fog Underway

tomschuring writes "The Age has a story about IATIA, who have been given $2.7 million by the Defence Department to fund development of a military spy camera capable of seeing through fog, smoke and dust storms. The technology uses a highly sophisticated camera that captures three images simultaneously through a single lens. Images thus resolved from between the particles making up fog, smoke, and dust storms are formed into a single picture of the hidden target."

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[RKBA]

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Unused links on how it works - some detail

[tqft]

Some detailed links on how it works

http://www.iatia.com.au/technology/insideQpi.asp

http://www.iatia.com.au/technology/applicationNo te s.asp

he algorithm has a number of key advantages, including:

* Returns phase and intensity information independently
* Provides quantitative, absolute phase (with DC offset)
* Is a rapid, stable, non-iterative solution
* Works with non-uniform and partically coherent illumination
* Offers relaxed beam conditioning
* Solves the twin image problem of holography
* Has been experimentally applied to a number of radiations

You can find their list of patents on theire site. Digging into these should give you more detail.

I don't care I am going on holidays for 3 weeks in 3hours

Re:also

[Rufus211]

ABCNEWS.com : Cameras Let Voyeurs See Through Clothes

Re:density

[ajna]

This system does not rely on resolution. You might be imagining it as taking two (or more) pictures shifted horizontally, perhaps, and somehow subtracting the intervening particle's optical effects, leaving only the subject matter. This is not how the system works, however: instead, as the summary briefly but correctly stated it relies on three images being taken, one focused in the plane being studied and the other two focused before and after that plane. Quantitative Phase Microscopy is the process of extracting additional data about the subject in the plane from the data in all three images. Why it doesn't rely on the resolution of the sensor is because the addition information is derived from the optical properties of the light passing through/reflected off the surface, not from sensor trickery.

I guess this could be used on cars given enough processor speed, but it's really not applicable in this case, as it yields additional information about something in a plane (parallel to the sensor of the imaging device -- imagine a brick wall ahead of you when driving). When driving, the plane, say, 50m ahead of the car is moving just as fast as you are, and seeing ultra-crisp images of that plane for the instant that it is 50m ahead would be of dubious utility imo.

Re:also

[Gordonjcp]

Actually, it was because it *didn't* have an IR filter - that was how the "NightShot" stuff worked. Images had an odd greyish tinge with weirdly glowing eyes. If you can stand it, look at the dark bits in the video for All Saints - Pure Shores for an example.

Nearly all CCD cameras are sensitive to infrared. You can test IR emitters by pointing a camcorder at them and watching for the flashes. I made a very effective IR surveillance camera by popping the front off the lens of a Philips Vesta Pro webcam (get the blade of a table knife into the little groove a couple of mm back from the front and twist) and removing the IR filter.

OASys

[philipsblows]

In college my clinic team worked with Northrop Electronic Systems on their OASys project, or Obstacle Avoidance System. It was a laser + computer navigation system that would scan the horizon through smoke or other aerosols and generate a "safe passage" navigation image to the helicopter pilot using it. Supposedly it worked pretty well (they were still working on it after our 9 months on our piece of the project). It was basically a rotating laser optics assembly that would trace a cone in space, and the assembly would scan in the horizontal plane to yield the losenge shape (they used that term).

Here's a funny little twist. When we went to the site to visit the developers of the project at Northrop, we stopped off in a meeting room that had on one of the walls a poster for the OASys project, featuring a helicopter with a losenge-shaped window of visibility depicted against some trees with some smoke and other debris in the air.

Nearby on the same wall was another poster for a weapon system, the name of which escapes me. It was the same poster, but in the middle of the losenge-shaped window of visibility was a little gunsight, and I think the helecopter had some weapons slung.

We asked our liason person whether the two projects were related, and he assured us they were completely different as we were brought to another area.

Our professor on the project was a Yugoslavian National, and this was in 1992, so you can imagine how fun the rest of our visit was when they found that out....

Re:also

[WhiteDeath]

I found this site about 6 years ago...

they sell the filters, and give a good run-down on the theory.