The Dark Side

Moments of interest: 13:50 - 1st fox sighting 15:28 - 2nd fox sighting (probably the same one) 35:28 - 3rd fox 1:01:15 - switch ST6 to white-hot 1:31:40 - 4th fox 1:34:40 - visual / thermal inverted reflections on water 1:38:10 - sleeping birds 1:39:38 - 5th fox with his kill Conditions were about 35F and clear, with an almost full moon. It was a clear, warm day so thermal viewing conditions are optimal. I changed the ST6 to point right and down by a few degrees, which provided a noticeable improvement when my brain tries to sync the two images. Just after the halfway point I switched the Opsin to black-and-white mode and the ST6 to white-hot mode to give a different perspective. I increased the ST6 to contrast 3 (from 1) to help the images stand out more. ST6 take is still at 70% alpha to better simulate what I'm actually seeing. ST6 take also scaled to 91% of original for the same reason.

Night vision/thermal fusion with Sionyx Opsin on the left eye, Rix ST6 on the right eye. Conditions about 50F, light rain transitioning to heavy rain, I start hiking at about 0400. During the hike I spot a chipmunk, a herd of deer, and a raccoon. Apologies for the extraneous movement on the ST6 - the mount worked its way loose and I didn't have my tools to tighten it up. ST6 take is at 70% alpha and scaled a bit to better represent what I actually see through the optics. Note that the video ends suddenly because the Opsin crashed trying to transition to a new video file - I thought it might have been water damaged, so I stopped recording at that point. (It was not, fired right up when I got home.)

While out testing at about 0500, I run into a fox who is having some success hunting. Note that even though it is pitch dark and I'm 25+ meters away, he is fully aware of me and quickly beats a retreat into the woods with his prize. Sorry there's no Opsin take or audio of this, I accidentally deleted the files while cleaning up the Opsin's storage.

This video was my best attempt to display what happens when I try to fuse the take from a Sionyx Opsin and a Rix ST6 thermal. This is not perfect because I'm not a video editor, and syncing the two is ... difficult. The ST6 take is at 70% Alpha because it's far brighter than the Opsin take in most scenarios. Conditions were mostly clear, no moon, some light from the city and across the river - very dark. This was my fourth attempt at this, and the first that was mostly successful. The primary problem I've run into is that the ST6 and the Opsin apparently have differently sized screens (different size pixels?). My ST6 take appears down and to the right of the Opsin take, and is ... wider? It's difficult to describe. I tried numerous different positions for the ST6 in relation to the Opsin (the Opsin is harder to move, I'll do a different video showing the setup). The only thing I can think of is that I need to move the ST6 forward, which is what I did to get this - but it's still not ideal. I think the optimum setup would be taking the feed from both sensors and merging them electronically into the same display, with the ability to scale and adjust as needed. That, however, would require a system to do the merging, and potentially increase latency. This also would require interoperability that doesn't exist at the moment, and might be difficult to establish.

Conditions were about 29F, cloudy, no moon, some backscatter from the city lights and lights from across the river. I run into a snow squall while hiking. The Opsin can actually see pretty well through it to about 50 or 60 meters. I also slip and fall on the icy trail. :)

This is the first part of a roughly three mile hike I took to show the Sionyx Opsin running under varying light conditions. Conditions were partly cloudy with no moon, some glow from the city lights on the clouds.

This is the second part of a roughly three mile hike I took to show the Sionyx Opsin running under varying light conditions. Conditions were partly cloudy with no moon, some glow from the city lights on the clouds.

This is the third part of a roughly three mile hike I took to show the Sionyx Opsin running under varying light conditions. Conditions were partly cloudy with no moon, some glow from the city lights on the clouds.

Attempting to use low-latency audio to detect any video latency in the Sionyx Opsin's display. Both the display and the recorded video are 30fps 720p. First test is with 2D noise suppression off, second test is with 2D noise suppression turned on.