Study of the human recognition of images to evaluate current performance measures

Alan H. Lettington; Alison M. Fairhurst; Kevin St. John Murphy

doi:10.1117/12.210048

22 May 1995 Study of the human recognition of images to evaluate current performance measures

Alan H. Lettington, Alison M. Fairhurst, Kevin St. John Murphy

Proceedings Volume 2470, Infrared Imaging Systems: Design, Analysis, Modeling, and Testing VI; (1995) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.210048
Event: SPIE's 1995 Symposium on OE/Aerospace Sensing and Dual Use Photonics, 1995, Orlando, FL, United States

Abstract

Current performance measures for thermal imagers relate only indirectly to human recognition. However, as the probability of recognizing an image may be used as a measure of image quality, the relationship described in this work could contribute to the formation of a new objective performance measure for thermal imaging systems. The human recognition probabilities of several degraded shapes have been evaluated using computer generated images displayed on a computer monitor. The shapes investigated were blurred by convolving them with a range of two dimensional Gaussian functions. In subsequent trials, these blurred images were further degraded by sampling (in order to simulate the effect of detector arrays in an imager). Images of degraded shapes were presented to observers in a random order and with a random degradation. After each presentation the observer decided which was the most likely shape to represent the image displayed on the screen. A correlation has been found between the probability of recognition of a particular degraded shape and the relative contrast between the image of that shape and a similarly degraded circle of the same area. This is true whether the degradation is due to blurring alone or to blurring followed by sampling.

Citation Download Citation

Alan H. Lettington, Alison M. Fairhurst, and Kevin St. John Murphy "Study of the human recognition of images to evaluate current performance measures", Proc. SPIE 2470, Infrared Imaging Systems: Design, Analysis, Modeling, and Testing VI, (22 May 1995); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.210048

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