Good night vision effect?

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Derelan

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well, the night vision i know of consists of a digital camera which sees near-infrared light (almost all unfiltered digital cameras do), and thus to illuminate the scene, an infrared-LED array consisting of anywhere from one to 36 IR light-emitting diodes is placed somewhere on the front of the camera. So techincally, the subject is being lit up like they would if you pointed a flashlight at them, only they dont know it (unless they're some sort of snake or something).

So what i'm trying to say here is, this type of infrared light is very distance-limited. Some work only up to 2metres, while the more powerful can be used at up to 30m.

Since this is supposed to work like a flashlight, why not have it look like one?

Night%20Vision%20Mike.JPG

(sorry bout the cheesy pic, all i could find at the moment)

A much easier way to do this is to have a mask over your view that darkens the outside and makes the centre of your view brighter than the rest.

Again, i've never heard of night vision technology that can be used to see objects far in the distance, without illuminating them (your second pic).
 

keihaswarrior

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There are different ways to see better at night.

Light enhancement simply uses a very light sensitive optic that then increases the brightness of all the light it detects. Therefore things will look brighter, and you will be able to see things that are too dimly lit for the human eye.

Infared uses an optic that is sensitive to light of very low frequency. Many materials emitt infared light in proportion to their temperature. This can also be combined with an infared flashlight.

These different methods will look very different and have different advantages. To decide on the correct night vision effect, first you must decide which method you are replicating.
 
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Damn, it seems everybody has all the goodies but me. :p

That 'rasterization'-effect you have Defkon is only found with 'thermal' imaging (like tank sights, FLIR. The older the more). Low-light has that washed out, low-level noise look of derelan's pic, but unless you're using an IR light to illuminate, you won't get the 'bright center/darkened edges'.

The hardest thing to simulate is not the look per se but rather what it will be like moving around. You get flare from irregular light sources, screen lag, ghosting, aperture problems etc. That's the really hard part.
 

Nightmare

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Low light is quite useful, but does have some drawbacks. The optics I got to test in the army made everything green-and-black. You also had to test before you stepped, since the optics distorted distance vision. Men, tents and other equipment was clearly visible at distances you couldn't even spot movement unaided.
 

geogob

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Nightmare said:
Low light is quite useful, but does have some drawbacks. The optics I got to test in the army made everything green-and-black. You also had to test before you stepped, since the optics distorted distance vision. Men, tents and other equipment was clearly visible at distances you couldn't even spot movement unaided.

Do you know what make that nvs was? seems pretty crappy to me. Since i'm working in IR spectrometry, I've seen a lot of device similar to night vision useby the military and some military models too. Modern devices are pretty amazing.

Some compagnie even do devices who combine a visible/near IR light with the signal from a far-IR (thermal imaging). Those scopes cost generally more then 10 000 US$. I think the israeli army have some of these devices in their inventory.


EDIT: bleh! i forgot to comment the images... the one from UT would be more realistic without the "scanline"... but it wouldn't look so cool :rolleyes: then...

If it's a near IR device, there should be a flashlight effect from the IR illuminator (see that photo posted). From a thermal imaging, contrast should be much higher. From a starlight device (light amplification) constrast should be much higher and shadows more proheminant.

FYI, the green images is there by choice. The detector is monochromatic (which is obviously so since there are no colours in IR :con:). So technically, the image could be shown in blanck & white. But this the human eye has more sensibilty and dynamic range in the green region, green phosphor is used to generate the image. You'll see much better that way, trust me. Some device create false colors (it's the case of the thermal device i mentionned earlyer). The colors normally indicate temperature ranges. The movie predator would be a good exemple of this... I guess... (it's not very realistic, but it's an illustration of what I mean by false colors).
 
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spm1138

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Did any of you ever play the first System Shock game?

That featured a device that let you see behind you which had quite a nice line in display lag.

Would that be anything like it?

Surely devices that emit IR light are detectable by anyone using a similar device?
 

Derelan

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The two features in Splinter Cell are a perfect example of the differences between night vision.

SplinterCell4.jpg

This would be near-infrared, or simply light amplification.


0002.jpg

This would be seeing the far-end of the spectrum of infrared light, which is seen with heat, thus it is known as thermal imaging.

Of course, that only explains the differences between the two, and how difficult they are to realistically impliment in a game.
 

5eleven

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I have only used AN-PVS5's in the Army, in the late 80's and have had a chance to use AN-PVS7's a bit more recently. Not much difference as far as I remember, but I do have to agree with Nightmare. With the PVS5's, depth perception was very distorted, and some items, such as even very small tree branches, or worse, concertina wire, went completely undetected.

That's what caused us to accidentally drive a Hummer into a tank trap during a field exercise. :lol: A ditch with about 5-7 rows of concertina wire strung across it. What a mess.

Defkon, that second pic you posted, with no light source, per se, looks more accurate than the first IMO. The best I can liken it to, was that of an old cathode ray television, trying to pick up a distance station, with all of the snow on the screen - but with a green tint. Light sources, such as cigarettes, or chem-lights illuminated an immediate area, and a cigarette or lighter up close with them on was damn near blinding.

And yes, I recal a small IR knob in the middle of the damned things that emitted a small IR beam. I believe that was supposed to be used for up-close work, not to run around with it on. And yes, it made the operator "more visible" to others with NVG's. It's also fun to use IR strobes to identify your team members, when you KNOW that your enemy doesn't have NVG's. More useful I suppose with civilian tactical teams.
 

DEFkon

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image test 3. -- attempt at getting the "IR-Illumination" effect "right"


Image test 2 is/was supposed to be from a vehicile mounted system (tank, mech, ect ect.) The landscape itself is real, just ran it through some visual effects i'm trying to perfect.
 

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OICW

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In Predator, IIRC, they actually filmed the thermal POV scenes with two cameras: the thermal imager and a blue-filtered one and merged the two together, which explained why the trees and bushes looked cold in the film. The reason why was because apparently the humidity made it nearly impossible to see the actors from other environmental objects from just the thermal imager alone, so they used the blue filter footage for things like scrubs and trees and the IR for fires and bodies.
 

Nightmare

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geogob said:
Do you know what make that nvs was? seems pretty crappy to me. Since i'm working in IR spectrometry, I've seen a lot of device similar to night vision useby the military and some military models too. Modern devices are pretty amazing.

This was 1992 and 1993, so the NVS was probably not as fine a product. Unfortunately I have no idea what model devices I used. May well have been Russian, IIRC we got a lot of hardware back then instead of money that they owed us.