Night Vision How far off are we from 1280 Sensor clip ons?
- Thread starter bmicek
- Start date
You mean 1280 sensors or 1280 display ?
We sort of already have 1280 displays, just that typically the display gets cut to 640 in clipon mode. But remains 1280 in non-clipon mode.
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As to 1280 sensors, the RH75 came out over a year ago with a 1280 sensor, IIRC.
The issue is at 12um this larger sensors increases the FOV or requires a huge front lens to offset the sensor size. This huge lens affects ergonomics and price (the material in the front lens now dominates the cost of the whole thermal).
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So practically speaking that means we need to move away from 12um down to 7um or 3um ... that sort of move will allow the front lens to be no larger or even smaller than it is today.
This will happen when big Army places a big order. Might be in our lifetimes !!
We sort of already have 1280 displays, just that typically the display gets cut to 640 in clipon mode. But remains 1280 in non-clipon mode.
==
As to 1280 sensors, the RH75 came out over a year ago with a 1280 sensor, IIRC.
The issue is at 12um this larger sensors increases the FOV or requires a huge front lens to offset the sensor size. This huge lens affects ergonomics and price (the material in the front lens now dominates the cost of the whole thermal).
==
So practically speaking that means we need to move away from 12um down to 7um or 3um ... that sort of move will allow the front lens to be no larger or even smaller than it is today.
This will happen when big Army places a big order. Might be in our lifetimes !!
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Unfortunately, sensor reduction scales exponentially in difficulty, so don't expect big leaps in regular order.
You know much more about the science behind all this than I do, so a couple questions:
- Is it possible to run a higher definition screen and use image processing to "fill in the gaps" to help a 640 sensor perform more like a higher res sensor with a 1:1 pixel to screen ratio? Say a 3:1 screen to sensor ratio to help that sensor out (a 640 sensor digitally zoomed in can look pretty good still)
- Since the wavelength being observed is usually 8-14um, does a sensor with a pixel pitch smaller than the wavelength observed have any issues? I.e. would a 7um or 3um sensor have issues sensing a 8-12um signal?
- I get that everyone wants the highest pixel density possible (driven by big lenses), but wouldn't a 1280 or even 1040 sensor in current 640 designs (a) keep the same pixel density while (b) increasing the FOV? Of course there would be some design changes, but if I could get Voodoo M performance in a unit with ~8-10 deg FOV that would be a step in the right direction in my opinion
The OASYS cores (relabeled BAE cores) used in the original Oasys line as well as the Trijicon (Electro Optic and their Oasys ) lines ... as well as N-Vision ... as well as PoT thermals definitely use image processing to improve the image - and its still amazing after well over a decade - to see the results. I've seen a few aspects of some of the newer chinese cores the so called sub 20 mk guide units that have some shock and awe to them ... but overall, the images still doesn't seem to be as "real world" to my eye. So it still seems like the image processing in the Oasys cores is the king.
Similar idea on a computer if you draw a literal circle with the hardware, you'll see "jaggies" - which we can use "smoothing" to remove those jaggies. So yes we can smooth the thermal images as well.
Stay tuned - I think you'll see some of this happening in the market soon ... on the USA made side of the market.
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We haven't seen this phenomena - no "rush" to buy the $17k huge RH75s seen from our bunker ! We've sold a few of them, but just a trickle.
Similar idea on a computer if you draw a literal circle with the hardware, you'll see "jaggies" - which we can use "smoothing" to remove those jaggies. So yes we can smooth the thermal images as well.
Stay tuned - I think you'll see some of this happening in the market soon ... on the USA made side of the market.
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We haven't seen this phenomena - no "rush" to buy the $17k huge RH75s seen from our bunker ! We've sold a few of them, but just a trickle.
Maybe I'm not using the right terminology...
When discussions around larger sensors comes up, it seems that the assumption is to keep the FOV the same which gives better definition at distance. I'd think the RH75 had a couple things going against it:
- Dedicated scope: while dedicated scopes can optically magnify an image, clip ons must present the image at a net 1x. Therefore, the clip on will disproportionately benefit from the larger sensor size. Personally, I have no interest in a dedicated thermal sight, but already own a 640 thermal clip on (even though the dedicated sight gives a better image due to higher base mag). If the RH75 had a cousin that was a clip on, I'd be very interested in that. For example, the Halo LR (9 deg FOV) should give a much superior image to the Yoter C (8.8 deg FOV) because the Halo LR is presenting the image with 3.5x optical mag while the Yoter C reducing the image to 1x (and fills the screen at 2x on my MK5HD). Of course, there is much more at play here than just the sensor size (country of origin, durability, sensor, image processing, etc.) but I hope I'm communicating what I'm trying to say here
- Cost: people go to the dedicated scope to save money, not spend more. The clip on guys are used to closing their eyes and spending more $ because of the versatility offered. However if you price a dedicated scope like the RH75 at original pricing, it needs to provide more than just increased FOV. However, if I could personally pay more for a similarly sized unit as the Yoter C but get 50% more FOV, I would do it because then I could run it on 1-8's, 2-10's, 3-18's and 5-25's in a pinch. I'm thinking 640 sensor / 35mm FOV with 50mm definition
- Market conditions: our fever dream of spending $ at the federal level finally came to an end and interest rates increased which reduced the money available for purchases like this. I do think more would have been sold if they could have come out with it a year earlier. Personally, I think we will start to see a slow increase in liquidity the net 12-18 months so hopefully product releases are more successful over that timeframe
Maybe I am missing something (very possible, I'm no engineer) but to me the best use case for the larger sensors is a ~50mm clip on with a 1040 or 1280 sensor (12ish deg FOV with same image quality as current 9deg FOV 640s) or a ~70mm clip on with a larger sensor and 10ish deg FOV with the same image quality as current 6deg FOV units. Hopefully sizing could be similar as the legacy 640 units but FOV increased (since germanium seems to be a meaningful cost as well).
As you said, smaller sensors certainly make this riddle easier to solve!
ETA: another item the RH75 worked against was sensor integrity as they were pretty clear that the larger sensor didn't play nicely with recoil. The recoil mitigating mount helped here for sure, but I think that gave some pause for a product with a premium price. Again, something the clip on guys value is durability simply because of the variety of weapons it will likely be used on (I had the 6 ARC, 308 Win, 300 NM and 50 out yesterday)
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