FLIR contrast and square TWS

[max power 21]

That looks like a handicam with "night mode" or something. I don't know about Abrams and such but the Stryker video is black and white. I think only the RV have thermal though and I believe that's black and white as well.

Of course. If we aren't looking at handicam video of the actual weapon sight or monitor in the vehicle, we are looking at the recorded video output as played back by some other system. In order to find the truth we need a first person observer of such systems- either an expert or some video recording of the actual screen output. Like I said before I think that the recording device records the signal in B/W but the video output device is green monochrome.

Doesn't have to be dynamic, but yes every object needs to have a thermal-specific texture, or else you'll never really get anything that looks anywhere near "quality thermal vision". Also, windows/doors need to be possible to see through. Especially open windows/doors...

I think that it would have to be dynamic because one could say this level of contrast is close enough to correct for some certain atmospheric / temperature conditions... like say at 3am when the desert is at its coolest.

You gotta love on a message board, any message board, how one unquestionably right seeming post, can be countered by another seemingly unquestionably right post. This is how propaganda works, and how conspiracy nuts thrive. Anywhoo:

There is a 4" screen, it might always be green like an old computer monitor sitting right about at the gunner's crotch. At about chest level is a old style Star Trek type viewer that the gunner leans their head into to have a view of what the flir/dtv/nvs/etc is seeing. I had the original Jane's Longbow

In fact pretty much every gunship has a gunner's "heads down display" or whatever it's called.

I don't think the person was referring to the mfd monitors as the '4 inch screen'. I think he was talking about the tads infrared imaging array. That infra red gun sight is not optical and ought to have some kind of electronic screen inside.

Edited July 20, 2010 by Max Power

[galzohar 31]

I think that it would have to be dynamic because one could say this level of contrast is close enough to correct for some certain atmospheric / temperature conditions... like say at 3am when the desert is at its coolest.

Just look at the Apache video. The "hot stuff" in Arma 2 are simply way too bright in relation to everything else. The first thing that needs to be done is reducing the "glow" effect. Second thing is that you need more variety in tempratures of different objects, just like in real life the white house wall is not as hot as the black road (not just because of their color) etc. Some materials simply get hotter/colder than others even when they are both at the same area, simply due to how fast the cool down / warm up. That's why thermal vision can actually tell the difference between the road, rocks, houses and just sand.

Oh and it couldn't hurt mentioning it again - People simply don't "glow" like that in real life. Maybe if they were on fire?...

[An-225 0]

Just look at the Apache video. The "hot stuff" in Arma 2 are simply way too bright in relation to everything else. The first thing that needs to be done is reducing the "glow" effect. Second thing is that you need more variety in tempratures of different objects, just like in real life the white house wall is not as hot as the black road (not just because of their color) etc. Some materials simply get hotter/colder than others even when they are both at the same area, simply due to how fast the cool down / warm up. That's why thermal vision can actually tell the difference between the road, rocks, houses and just sand.

Oh and it couldn't hurt mentioning it again - People simply don't "glow" like that in real life. Maybe if they were on fire?...

If we are talking about that "Collateral Murder" video...I don't think that was filmed with FLIR on? You can clearly see shadows, and other details that would not be visible on the IR Spectrum.

[galzohar 31]

Actually, you're right, I'm not sure about that one - I just assumed attack helicopters in black and white would be FLIR and didn't pay attention to details.

However,

is most likely FLIR (it did happen at dark). Can see the warm heads and cold life vests.

[TinManNFO 10]

What are the cooling times on these small-package IR optics? The Javelin CLU takes a few minutes and it's huge with all manner of heavy duty batteries. The Javelin missile itself uses a disposable coolant bottle to achieve ~10 sec optics temperature. The little PVS optic small enough to fit on a rifle has got be slower than a light switch.

It's been a while, but I remember it only took a few seconds for the AN/PAS-13B to start up, about as long as a handheld video camera; anyone who has actually used one longer and is more familiar with it, please correct me if I'm wrong. I remember it made a slight humming noise or something as the cooling system was working. Does anyone know if the later (and more compact) models use an uncooled array?

Also I think that the resolution and clarity of the images might be a bit much. I think if you more heavily post process the signal with noise and pixelation it would cause a more significant drawback for these systems.

Yeah, from the ones I've seen, it's like a 640x480 array at best, definitely not HD or anything...

Also, I think changing them to the more realistic, easy-on-the-eyes green screen instead of of the video playback black-and-white would further make the systems harder to use.

The PAS-13 display is in fact in black and white and not green.

Also, windows/doors need to be possible to see through. Especially open windows/doors...

You actually can't see through windows (i.e. silicon dioxide glass windows) with FLIR. For the same reason that greenhouses work (the visible sunlight passes through the glass, but any reradiated thermal wavelengths are reflected back towards the inside), the glass is not transparent to thermal radiation, and looking at a glass window using FLIR will look exactly like you are looking at a mirror. The optics in thermal imaging systems use more exotic ceramics that are transparent to thermal wavelengths but are generally not transparent to visibile light. Also, you couldn't see through a door any more easily that you could see through a wall of the same material. As was mentioned previously, what the FLIR can see is based primarily on the temperature and emissivity of the objects in its field of view; you wouldn't be able to tell that a person is behind a door unless, say, the person was leaning on the door and made the door heat up enough that a warmer spot formed on the other side of it, but it would still just look like an amorphous warm spot and not like a person.

If we are talking about that "Collateral Murder" video...I don't think that was filmed with FLIR on? You can clearly see shadows, and other details that would not be visible on the IR Spectrum.

IIRC that looked like they were using the electroptical (EO) mode of the TADS in that video. Most of the modern imaging pods and targeting systems I'm familiar with have both an EO and an IR imaging system, as one helps overcome the limitations of the other; for example you might be able to detect a vehicle easily with the FLIR, but you might want to switch over to EO to PID it as friendly or enemy by looking at the markings on it. (An example in game the other day: I was messing around in the armory with an M1 Abrams IIRC, and I saw an M113 driving towards me; not that it would have been a threat at all with just a 50 cal on it, but I happened to switch from FLIR to direct view optics (DVO) and saw it was Takistani but with the big Red Crescent on the side of it. While I know it's just a computer game, in real life a vehicle or building with a Red Cross, Red Crescent, etc. has a "protected" status under the Laws of Armed Conflict (LOAC), and you can't shoot at it unless it is being used illegally. So, I just decided to ignore it to suit my conscience, as it couldn't do anything to me anyway.)

[galzohar 31]

I did specifically mention open doors/windows being an obvious flaw. Air is transparent to IR radiation last time I checked. You can argue forever whether actual closed windows should or shouldn't be transparent (and I honestly wouldn't know the answer, as it probably depends on they type of window etc), there's nothing to argue about open doors and windows. Those should be 100% transparent, and very often they aren't, but rather look like the building would look if you didn't finish loading the correct LOD.

[TinManNFO 10]

Galzohar, just to be clear, I was not trying to insult your intelligence or anything, and I was expecting that any reasonable person would agree with you on the "open" part of your sentence. I probably should have made myself clearer that it does seem to be a common misconception in movies and some video games that you can see through windows and supposedly thinner surfaces like doors with thermal imaging; some examples I can remember are Rainbox Six: Raven Shield where there was a thermal scope on some of the sniper weapons capable of seeing through some surfaces including windows and doors, on the Aliens vs. Predator games where I have seen the Predator thermal vision mode able to see through windows, and I can remember some episode in the old Robocop series where someone murdered someone else by using the thermal imager in a prototype of the helmet to shoot him through a wall, and it goes on and on...

[galzohar 31]

No offense taken. Just wanted to stress out for everyone that it's not just about whether glass should be transparent or not, but rather a direct LOD issue. Basically a direct oversight by BIS. Once they take care of that they can start thinking what kind of texture they give to glass windows ;)

[galzohar 31]

Anyway, the second video should be FLIR. If you find any more FLIR videos of course they would be welcome to show everyone what it looks like ;)

The shadows on the reporter-RPGist video clearly show it's not FLIR, like I said I didn't really pay attention to detail first time I watched it.

[TinManNFO 10]

I didn't watch that vid until just the other day, because I don't normally like stuff like that. Camera guy looked like he was holding an RPG tube, but no one else looked armed.

I don't want to go off topic here, but I felt I needed to say my quick thought in response to this, and any further discussion along this line should probably go in another thread.

Here is a link I found to the 2BCT2ID investigation report into the incident (note: this is a PDF file): http://www.lineofdeparture.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/070717-2nd-BCT-15-6.pdf When I first watched the video (before I read the report) and saw the few seconds around the screen capture labeled "Exhibit B" (at time 06:20:06 Zulu) in the report, to my eye from having spent months of seeing people walking around with different types of weapons in theater (in the sandbox, if you had a weapon you carried it on you at almost all times, so your brain starts to recognize pretty quickly how everyone around you moves when they're carrying a rifle in whatever way) and from seeing tons of bad guys running at me with AKs and RPGs in things like ArmA, my brain registered one of the guys walking swinging what looked to me like an AKS-47 or -74 (holding it with one hand by the pistol grip) by his side and another guy with an RPG launcher recognizable by its length about 2/3 of the guy's height with a biconical part at one end. You can definitely see the cameras, though, just by the way they're holding them and the squared-off ends of the tubes; the devices are just too bulky and short by the way the people are moving to be RPG launchers.

If nothing else, and more on topic, this emphasizes how having a lot of advanced vision technology doesn't absolve a warfighter of being proficient at target identification and from needing to be able to make both quick and informed decisions in very stressful situations.

[max power 21]

Oh and it couldn't hurt mentioning it again - People simply don't "glow" like that in real life. Maybe if they were on fire?...

Really?

The PAS-13 display is in fact in black and white and not green.

Well, there you go!

We know the TWS ought to be black and white, and the Bradley ought to be green and white... I guess to find what colour display you have in different applications, you'd have to know the equipment classification for the weapon sight and look it up or find a video filming the actual screen.

Edited August 6, 2010 by Max Power

[galzohar 31]

Really?

There's a very big difference between that video and what you get in the game.

[max power 21]

There's a very big difference between that video and what you get in the game.

Describe those differences. The background of both is dark, and the men are very close to white.