Image Frequency Analysis for Testing of Fire Service Thermal Imaging Cameras

    Authors

    F. Amon;A. Ducharme

    Comments

    Authors: contact us about adding a copy of your work at STARS@ucf.edu

    Abbreviated Journal Title

    Fire Technol.

    Keywords

    thermal imaging camera; performance metric; test method; image analysis; fire service; Engineering, Multidisciplinary; Materials Science, Multidisciplinary

    Abstract

    A growing number of first responders are purchasing infrared cameras (thermal imagers). Thermal imagers provide critical information for many firefighting operations: size up, tracking of fire growth, location of victims and egress routes, overhaul, etcaEuro broken vertical bar. Although thermal imagers have proven to be useful tools for the fire service over the past 10-15 years, there is no existing comprehensive performance standard for thermal imagers used in fire service applications. A suite of thermal imager performance metrics and test methods is being developed for possible inclusion in a proposed standard on thermal imagers for the fire service. The following goals apply to two of the imaging performance metrics in this suite: to explore the feasibility of a new spatial resolution metric and test method, the Random Modulation Transfer Function (MTF); and to transfer the essential characteristics of complex fire scene images to a thermal target for the effective temperature range test using image frequency content analysis. Images of humans standing in an upright position at varying distances from the thermal imager under test and wearing either street clothes or turnout gear were analyzed for frequency content. These data were then used to determine the frequency of a bar target for the bench-scale effective temperature range test.

    Journal Title

    Fire Technology

    Volume

    45

    Issue/Number

    3

    Publication Date

    1-1-2009

    Document Type

    Article

    Language

    English

    First Page

    313

    Last Page

    322

    WOS Identifier

    WOS:000265918000004

    ISSN

    0015-2684

    Share

    COinS