Vehicle Imaging System Merging IR and Color Video Streams
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current color video cameras in vehicles struggle to provide usable video in dark conditions, while long-range IR cameras offer visibility in full darkness but at lower resolution and in greyscale.
Innovation Solution
An imaging and display system that combines visible light and IR video streams, using a processing circuit to generate a composite video stream by dynamically adjusting the weight and transparency of each stream, thereby enhancing nighttime visibility and adding color to the image.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Illumination intensity
If a visible light video camera is used to capture color video, then color information and resolution are improved, but visibility in dark conditions deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines the video streams from two different cameras operating in different spectral regions (visible light and infrared) into a single composite video stream. The processing circuit superimposes the visible light video stream with the infrared video stream, allowing the system to simultaneously achieve color information from the visible camera and nighttime visibility from the IR camera, thereby resolving the contradiction between color quality and dark condition performance
2Reliability
If a long-range IR video camera is used to capture video in darkness, then nighttime visibility is improved, but color information and resolution deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The system merges the infrared video stream (providing nighttime visibility) with the visible light video stream (providing color information) through superimposition in the processing circuit. This combination allows the composite video to display both the enhanced nighttime visibility from the IR camera and the color information from the visible light camera simultaneously, resolving the contradiction between darkness performance and color quality
3Manufacturing precision
If both visible light and IR video streams are combined, then overall image quality is improved, but processing complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The processing circuit dynamically adjusts the transparency weight of the infrared video stream based on ambient light conditions. Rather than always combining both streams at full intensity, the system applies partial action by adjusting the IR stream's contribution - using more IR in darker conditions and less in brighter conditions - thereby improving image quality when needed while managing processing complexity through adaptive rather than constant full-combination processing
Data Source
AI summary
An imaging and display system is provided for a vehicle having: a video display disposed in an interior of the vehicle; a visible light video camera configured to capture a visible light video stream of a scene in a visible region of the electromagnetic spectrum; a long-range IR video camera configured to capture an IR video stream of the scene in an IR region of the electromagnetic spectrum; and a processing circuit for receiving the visible light video stream and the IR video stream for generating a composite video stream including at least part of the visible light video stream superimposed with at least part of the IR video stream, the processing circuit configured to supply the composite video stream to the video display for display thereon.