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"Shimmer Vision" Scopes See Better Using Heat
Posted by
kdawson
on Wed Aug 27, 2008 01:06 AM
from the coco-bop dept.
from the coco-bop dept.
holy_calamity writes "New Scientist reports on a neat DARPA idea that uses the shimmer of heat haze to allow binoculars to see further. It works by exploiting the fact that some distortions from heat haze actually magnify objects behind them. The binoculars collect a series of frames when that is occurring to boost magnification by 3 times. The design goal is to be able to present one image a second, and to enable facial recognition at 90% accuracy at a distance of 1 km. The scopes could be on the battlefield inside of 3 years."
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DARPA Developing Super Scope 39 comments
Iddo Genuth writes "Researchers at the Strategic Technology Office of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) are developing new high-resolution scopes that extend the range of viable image recognition and reduce atmospheric interference. Still in the early prototyping stage, DARPA hopes the new optical system (PPT presentation) will eventually result in a decrease of friendly fire incidents and collateral damage from military operations. 'Called the Super-Resolution Vision System (SRVS), this new system exploits atmospheric turbulence effects that magnify pieces of images behind heat haze. The formal name for this phenomenon is atmospheric turbulence-generated micro-lensing and it creates a brief, high resolution image behind the haze. The SRVS takes many such images and collates them to create a cohesive image of the entire larger area under observation using new advances in signal processing made possible by advances in computer processing power and increased storage capabilities.'"
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That explains it... (Score:5, Funny)
...I could never figure out why every sci-fi show has super-advanced computerized binoculars, even when they can't seem to do anything but enlarge an image (and show numbers and blinking lights).
Re:That explains it... (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You can already do that, you just can't likely get the technology easily and affordable.
As much as I respect DARPA this seems like it is likely just a mirage.
If you have the inclination and the connections you *can* get optical scopes that will recognize objects.
This article is about increasing magnification results due to the optics based on heat. It seems like a realistic probability but a logistics nightmare. If you've ever been in the desert you'll see the waves but, at the same time, you'll see them ac
Re:That explains it... (Score:4, Interesting)
This reminds me of an article from several years back in ?popular mechanics? (I think) . There was a chap who "for fun" would hike to the top of a mountain adjacent to Area 51 and take pictures of the base and air traffic with an uber-telephoto lens. The rig was impressive to my untrained eye, and I have to assume it would make even the most hardened paparazzi jealous. From memory, he was ~6ish miles from the runway. The limitations on picture quality were from atmospheric distortion because of heat differentials rising off the desert, AKA the 'shimmer' from TFA.
Here you go mountain guy, this ones for you.
Parent
3 years (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems like everything will be on the battlefield inside of 3 years. Read as project will be dropped inside of 3 years after soaking up 3 years worth of government investing.
Re:3 years (Score:4, Insightful)
Depends on the battlefield. If there is no battlefield it means 5 years. If there is an active war it often means 6 months or a year.
There is little that can kick technological advancement into high-gear like an active war.
Parent
Re:3 years (Score:5, Insightful)
This is *my* opinion.
War has resulted in more technological breakthroughs and advances than any other single cause in the history of man. From stones to nukes.
It kind of sucks that we don't seem to bond with our fellow man until we're at risk.
Parent
Re:3 years (Score:5, Insightful)
And this is *my* opinion.
Many, if not most, of the worlds greatest inventions were developed in peacetime, for peaceful purposes.
A short list:
Writing
Vaccinations
Steam power
Industrial revolution
Internal combustion engine
Light bulb
Aeroplanes
Transistors
World Wide Web
etc etc etc
This "war is good for technology" meme is complete hogwash. And has been throughout recorded history.
Parent
Re:3 years (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, but the Second World War greatly accelerated the development of jet aircraft.
The World Wide Web is descended from APRANET which was a military network designed by the American Goverment to resist a nuclear war.
And Florence Nightengale developed most of the theory while out in the Crimean war and her experiances there led her to conduct further research.
Complete hogwash you say?
Parent
On the Battlefield (Score:5, Interesting)
Could this technique be used for general astronamy as well, making use of temporary increases in gravitational lensing? I know that gravitational lensing is being made use of, but I bet there are fluctuations that have, until now, been seen only as a limitation.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:On the Battlefield (Score:5, Interesting)
The advantage military technology has is that it is results oriented. In terms of capability they know where they are today and they can specify in considerable detail exactly where they want to be. In the case of organizations like DARPA, they give considerable latitude to the designers in how they solve these problems and the US DoD is relatively patient when it comes to ultimately getting the results they were looking for. There are qualities reflected here that are absent in many other sectors that have little to do with military research per se. In fact, these qualities are not intrinsic to military research at all, so I would say it reflects favorably on the R&D culture that the US DoD has fostered that so many interesting "blue sky" research projects get funded that more conservative private sector institutions would never consider.
There is still plenty of basic science and technology research that gets done outside of military research circles, but military research has the advantage that they are working toward a specific result or technology, even when working on "blue sky" projects. I suspect that focus on specific high-level results combined with wide latitude in design and patience in delivery breeds a very productive research environment relative to those with less critical or obvious goal structures.
Parent
Re:On the Battlefield (Score:5, Informative)
Long range shooter reporting in.
Mirage is nearly everywhere nearly all the time, and we use it to dope wind along the course of fire. The angle indicates wind speed and direction is a clue to wind direction. We are also aware that changes in sun intensity and direction affect the shooter's impression of where the target is located...bullets strike lower in bright light relative to where your eye thinks they will.
Anyway, a lot of the posts here lead me to believe people think DARPA needs to know exact temperature for this to work. I don't think so, since mirage is wind dependent as well, and there is no way to know that with much accuracy.
Parent
Re:On the Battlefield (Score:4, Funny)
Well, one non-military use this will have is allowing people to use binoculars better. Uh, in very limited situations, like seeing down the road on a hot day. For millionaires, since this is probably going to be expensive for a while. So there's that... Also say you are a millionaire in the desert and want to see more sand. What are you going to use? This thing!
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
See for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Gravitational.Microlensing.Light.Curve.OGLE-2005-BLG-006.png [wikipedia.org]
The scale on the x axis is days, just to give you an idea of the time scale some of these events happen on.
Signal Processing (Score:5, Informative)
This is the same principle used in noise cancellation filters. Except that they are extracting information from the distortion instead of dropping it. You can take the average of a signal with distortion and assume that the distortion is random, and throw out the random seeming bits of it. This aims to save the random stuff, and try to find a pattern within it (such as a face), then it probably uses that to enhance the real-time pixels.
I think there was a story on here about using still photos to enhance digital movies. The principle is probably the same, only the "still photo" is replaced by stuff that's inferred to be noise, but good noise (and possibly processed with a face algo).
No reason why you couldn't do this with radio also, they probably already do.
Re:Signal Processing (Score:5, Funny)
This is the same principle used in noise cancellation filters. Except that they are extracting information from the distortion instead of dropping it.
So, it's the same thing but completely different. Brilliant.
Parent
Used in Telescopes as well, I think... (Score:3, Interesting)
There was an article [bbc.co.uk] on the BBC about a similar method like this this last year.
A new method of looking at stars in the sky through cloud cover; it actually takes several pictures, and combines the best parts of each picture to form one clear picture. Allows telescopes to increase their sharpness many fold. The professor in the news story actually gives an example of a heat haze, coincidentally enough (or not)!
But this looks like a step up from what's in that article. They're taking the best magnified parts of the picture.
If it depends on heat shimmer... (Score:5, Funny)
Wouldn't that mean the binoculars are only useful in the desert? Nice to see the US is really working hard to get troops out of the middle-east.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
The Middle East isn't the only area that's hot. Soon the Mexicans will use it to keep Americans out. :)
1 FPS scope? (Score:4, Interesting)
The design goal is to be able to present one image a second, and to enable facial recognition at 90% accuracy at a distance of 1 km. The scopes could be on the battlefield inside of 3 years."
Nothin' like sniping a long-range moving target with a full second of lag!
Travel to interesting places... (Score:3, Insightful)
Travel to interesting hot deserts, meet interesting people and kill them from a great distance.
Be all you can be with technology!
I know the military has provided us with all kinds of great tech, but it's a shame that we have to kill people.
Repaired link from TFA (Score:5, Informative)
The article has a broken link to the original technical presentation. Try this: http://www.iol.umd.edu/Presentations/slideshow.php?id=54 [umd.edu]
The results here are very interesting. This is different -- and harder -- than the adaptive optics used in ground-based astronomy because the distorting medium is thick, extending all the way to the object being observed. What this implies is that the wavefront distortion isn't uniform across the entire image. So they pick out regions of good (sharp) seeing from each frame, then stitch them together to produce an entire sharp frame. They'll need a fairly fast image processor in those binoculars.
IS already available? (Score:5, Interesting)
I thought one of the first obvious things to implement is Image Stabilisation. I find that one of the biggest drawbacks of binoculars is that the image shakes so much at high "magnifications".
CSI does better. (Score:5, Funny)
This is nothing. CSI manage magnification way better than this every week. I think it is achieved through the combined technology of inadequately lit laboratories and music by The Who.