An image quality analysis of ANVIS-6 night vision goggles

Abstract

This study was undertaken in an effort to relate ANVIS-6 Night Vision Goggle image quality to user performance. The purpose was to determine which of five image quality metrics best related to performance tasks. The image quality metrics examined Modulation Transfer Function Area (MTFA), Integrated Contrast Sensitivity (leS), Square Root Integral (SQRI), Resolution, and Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR). The performance tasks were detection and recognition of targets under various levels of moon illumination. The metric that best related to target detection was SNR. The SNR results are consistent with visual psychophysics and SNR effects. The metric that best related to target recognition was Resolution. The resolution results are consistent with the position that recognition performance improves for suprathreshold targets as resolving power increases.