Super-resolution technique for thermography with dual-camera system

Abstract

We propose the use of a super-resolution (SR) technique for thermographies. This system captures several thermal images for a reconstruction-based SR. However, it does not require the subpixel registration required by conventional SRs. In this system, a pair of a low-resolution thermal image and a high-resolution visible image is captured synchronously. While the thermal images are used as source data for SR, the visible images are used for pixel registrations. Because the resolution of the visible images from CCD sensors is over 4 times higher than that of the thermal images, a simple pixel registration on the former is equivalent to a precise subpixel registration on the latter. Thus, we can reconstruct a high quality thermogram, without the need for a complex subpixel registration technique. Experimental results demonstrate that a pair of a thermographic camera with only 8×8 pixels and a visible CCD camera with 320 × 240 pixels generates a thermogram with 32 × 32 pixels. This fact means that a pair of a low cost thermographic camera and a standard CCD camera provides high-quality thermography.