Thread: Night Vision in Car

Nice write up. If you disconnect the camera board (you can disconnect the IR board if you like too), the video out changes to a video in.

I'm going to mount mine on the back of my rear view mirror (facing forward). You can also get 1/3 board mount lenses. They are tiny and are the same types of lenses found on most rear view cameras. If you are going to put it outside, that's what I'd get to keep it small.

As far as powering it, I'd just make a small regulator. I wouldn't put the car's voltage (which can actually be up to 14v)

Go to radioshack and get an LM317T adjustable voltage regulator. With two resistors and some caps, you can make a 9v regulator in a few minutes. Or you could get a LM7809 9v vreg, but don't think radio shack carries those, they do usually carry the 12 and 5v version around here (LM7812,LM7805)

Originally Posted by NiteMax Mark

CS-Mount describes the size of lens that will fit the NiteMax threads. A C-Mount lens is a bigger lens.

I know the Sony board says C-Mount but I think it is because this is a 1/3" CCD which is larger than the standard 1/4" CCD. I think this Sony CCD is a better quality CCD that was expected to be used with larger lenses in more expensive applications.

By the way... I have a bunch of the metal parts that fit the footprint outlined on the Sony board. (This is the same metal insert on the front of the NiteMax used for attaching the lens.) I don't know what size the two screws are that are above and below the CCD chip itself. These metal rings would normally let you join the Sony board together with a CS-Mount lens. (The NiteMax uses the four mounting holes at the corners to hold the Sony board in the plastic instead.)

so anybody tried an autofocus setup yet.. i have my first order.. but have not taken it apart yet.

lots of questions.... what about weatherproofing a lens... not finding anything on a weatherproof lens... and auto focus etc. everything i find with auto focus/ auto iris is CCTV stuff....

thanks for the input...

Originally Posted by crabbdaddy

so anybody tried an autofocus setup yet.. i have my first order.. but have not taken it apart yet.

lots of questions.... what about weatherproofing a lens... not finding anything on a weatherproof lens... and auto focus etc. everything i find with auto focus/ auto iris is CCTV stuff....

thanks for the input...

No autofocus. On CCTV stuff, it's a two part thing. Motorized lens and then an output from the board camera or a latter stage to drive it.

To be honest though, I don't think it's a big deal. For the most part, you're going to want to focus on a certain non-changing area ahead.

Though I've been thinking since I found the motorized lens i had, how you go retrofit it. If you were capturing it on a pc, it wouldn't be that hard to get it to control the focus. Basically adjust until you hit maxium contrast. Wouldn't have to do it for every scan line, I bet one middle hoizontal line would be sufficent for a road scenario as everything is on a fixed plane.

Another way would be if you had a microcontroller fast enough, you could use that. I have my doubts if a PIC is fast enough to sample it. Non very experienced with working with video though.

Originally Posted by iph3w

i am new to this topic and i only read the last 3 pages and i really dont want to miss the deal on the nitemax. well the camera mark sells doesnt have the lens and I dont have any C-mount lens at home. so would it be better for me to buy http://cgi.ebay.com/NiteMax-Ultra-Ni...QQcmdZViewItem or http://cgi.ebay.com/Carson-NiteMax-1...QQcmdZViewItem sorry if my question is way off topic from what u guys are talking about.

Actually it's a CS-Mount lense you're after. Depending on what your after, they go pretty cheap. (C-mount will work with a spacer, Mark has them).

It's not just about a lense though, you need to get one that is appropriately sized. Not sure what size that comes with.

http://www.eyespyvideo.com/pdfdownloads/lenschart.pdf

If you want it in a car, you're going to want a wide view angle.

The only other hting I can add, is that I haven't dealt with that seller (though some of his past auctions are "interesting" ), but I can say that Mark has been great to deal with.

iph3w (and anybody that wants a lesson on light)

Microwaves, x-rays, radio waves, gamma rays, light rays, death rays are all part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Our eyes are tuned to pick up only a specific portion of that spectrum, what we call visible light. During the day, critical vision (color and definition) takes place on a central point (cone cells) on the retina (picture a donut and light rays being focused right through the hole). At night, the eyes automatically go into a different mode, focusing the light on the donut itself (rod cells), giving us less critical / defined (color) vision but more Black and White vision.

Ever here something in the bushes at night and try to see it by looking right at it? Your ears homed in on the signal and your eyes go right for it, but you'll find that you see just a little better if you turn your eyes a few degrees away from the sound. Or, try to guess if that car is dark blue, dark green or black? What you are doing is focusing more of the available light on the donut.

Infrared light is a natural by product of the visible spectrum just like Ultra Violet is also a byproduct. Think of them as book ends to a rainbow. If you picture the colors of a rainbow, they go in this order Red, Orange Yellow Green Blue Indigo and Violet. Ultra Violet is on one end, and IR is on the other.

This is the problem with driving at night. We don’t have very defined vision, so the headlights help light the way and make more available light for our eyes. But, in order not to blind oncoming drivers, we can’t make them super bright to light up the path.

So, by using the NiteMax camera which is tuned to pick up not only the white light but the naturally occurring IR from the headlights or other IR sources like the illuminator, which extend farther than where the headlight fades, and we can display it on a screen, then the image on the screen would be better than what we see eyes only. At least that was my theory…the road test proved it right. The image on the screen was nice and bright with the headlights on, better than my vision. The image on the screen was also like the illuminance of a bright flashlight with the headlights off and just the IR than with my eyes alone. And, when the deer popped out and the parking lights went on, that proved the Nitemax worked with both IR and white light sources enhanced the image.

Just as a test, last night I sealed off a room for total darkness. With the camera and IRs on full blast, I could focus in and actually read a newspaper on my desk at about 4 feet! That was pretty cool.

We can pick up and isolate most portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. A rainbow is created when white light passes through a prism, which is a transparent meduim that has a triangle shape. That's a prism, and it splits the white light up into its various wavelengths.

The reason you see a rainbow in the sky when the sun comes out after a rainstorm is because the little droplets of water suspended in the air have a refractive index, they are shaped like a triangle, and therefore which splits the sunlight light up into it's component colors.

The thermal imagers used for the CaddyVision pick up an entirely different wavelength, thermal energy, which eliminates “seeing” anything, but more like sensing heat from bodies. Basically, the mentality is if a wavelength can be transmitted, it can be received by a piece of equipment (radios, TVs, cel phones, etc.). All you gotta do is buy the equipment. At least that’s what SETI keeps hoping!

Originally Posted by iph3w

yeah and thanks for the quick reply shotgun, i just made a few calls and one of my friends has a store and he said he sells these type of lenses too. The only question i have left is that the camera is new and everything is working, right? ill buy the two cameras mark has on his hands tonight when i get home. Also, i am a bit confused about something. So if u turn on ur headlights, the camera wont see anything or it will pick up the IR signals from the headlight as well(what i understood from quantum's post)? so will it see or will it not?

Yeah they work.

The only problem I had was a gain button on the first unit I received was broken. I didn't care as is it still worked fine for all intensive purposes. I told him I didn't care and he still insisted replacing it at no charge.

The replacement and the additional units I ordered all worked perfectly. Excellent seller. Which reminds me, I got to go hit ebay and feedback him.

qantum, ther'es almost no need to put the lens outside, adn IMO, unless this si a reverse camera, it would be a bad idea. Any part ouside the cabin exposed to the elements are affected by the elements, and though it would work just fine, so does having the lens inside the cabin, as i found out yeterday, IR on or not. The IR illuminator part is what you want outside so it doesn't get him by the relfection, refraction, or angle of incidence (you engineers and physists know that term) in the glass Besides, i'd rather want to replace a $3 IR illuminator than a $80 CCD, circuit board, and lensincase something goes wrong. . But have fun, experimentation is key! All of us are having fun now.

To shorten quantum's amazing explaination, visibile light on the EM spectrum isn't the only light emitted. The actual range of the wavelenght of the light emitted is actually a little bit greater than our own vision. Its why bees see the ultraviolet in flowers (which all flowers have, besides the pretty colors we see, they have UV designs as well) and infrared (which, when a red stove burns hot, you're missing alot of the EM action, its mostly in IR heat). In fact, whne you use the IR illuminator, it will glow faint red as some of the light it emits enters our visual range. Since our eyes ony see what we call the visible light range, we miss out on alot. What is used to see into this scale are "viewers" or sensory equipment, such as this camera, that read into the these just-out-of-visual-range wavelenghts and recreates the image in an output that we can measure, in this case, see. This camera isn't traditionally thought "nightvision", sicne it doesn't enhance low light conditions, as much as it's "IR vision". Night vision works on a completely different premise than this and has difference circuitry. THe IR Illuminator on the better goggles (indicated by a + sign) is the IR working as a flash light, which the goggles then enhance that light, allowing you to see in total darkness. The difference is enhancing and just reading. There are many approaches to seeing in the dark though.

Good work on that write up too...i think i'll need you to repost that somewhere or i'll just link it. You took a two paragrah point, night vision vs HIDs, in my write up and put it in there in three sentences, . I'm slightly considering getting a bigger LCD as i'm near sighted. My not post a problem though. Anyways, yeah, let me play steven spielberg today and have fum. Nice to see the thread is alive again. Quantum, Shotgun, Mark, you guys are awesome, and doing a great job.

Quantum, do you think you can do a detailed write up for the review section? If i don't have to do it, because of certain medical issues, i'll love to let you do it as you're so far head...

Mark, thanks for getting yoru ahnds on this and releasing them at a great price and your' continued involvement in testing this thing's limitations and uses.

Shotgun, where are my super lenses??!! .