Infer Thermal Information from Visual Information: A Cross Imaging Modality Edge Learning (CIMEL) Framework

Abstract

The measurement accuracy and reliability of thermography is largely limited by a relatively low spatial-resolution of infrared (IR) cameras in comparison to digital cameras. Using a high-end IR camera to achieve high spatial-resolution can be costly or sometimes infeasible due to the high sample rate required. Therefore, there is a strong demand to improve the quality of IR images, particularly on edges, without upgrading the hardware in the context of surveillance and industrial inspection systems. This paper proposes a novel Conditional Generative Adversarial Networks (CGAN)-based framework to enhance IR edges by learning high-frequency features from corresponding visual images. A dual-discriminator, focusing on edge and content/background, is introduced to guide the cross imaging modality learning procedure of the U-Net generator in high and low frequencies respectively. Results demonstrate that the proposed framework can effectively enhance barely visible edges in IR images without introducing artefacts, meanwhile the content information is well preserved. Different from most similar studies, this method only requires IR images for testing, which will increase the applicability of some scenarios where only one imaging modality is available, such as active thermography.

Medical thermovision: possibilities and prospects of the method

“…Инфракрасное излучение, попавшее в окружаю щую среду, улавливается специальными датчиками, находящимися в тепловизоре, и проецируется на его матрице, после чего преобразуется на экране в видимый свет и формирует детальный тепловой поток. В зависимости от интенсивности улавливаемого излучения более холодные участки имеют синий, а теплые, напротив, красный цвет [20,21]. Наряду с преимуществами бесконтактной визуализации в режиме реального времени с широким измерением анатомических областей медицинская термография не имеет вредного излучения, в связи с этим она незаменима для общественного и долгосрочного использования [22].…”