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What is Digital Night Vision? Digital night vision allows you to see in very low levels of light, similar in function to military night vision devices that you see on TV, except with a totally different technology, or operating method. The technology, this digital system, has numerous advantages.
How does it work? Unlike military night vision devices that use a fragile glass "tube" to intensify every last bit of ambient light, the DNV scope uses a sophisticated electronic sensor to receive the ambient light. It's called a charge coupling device, or CCD sensor. Rather than simply intensifying the light like tube night vision, the sensor registers the light in a digital format. This data comes in the form of pixels of information, which is getting rather complicated, but it's basically the same way a digital camera works.
Why is it better to have digital night vision? The military-type of night vision has what you might call a "dumb" system while DNV scope’s digital system is "smart." The tube simply intensifies all light regardless of how bright, which leads to a very big problem called "blooming." Blooming is when the tube encounters a fairly bright light source, like a street lamp, and "stupidly" intensifies the light, causing the system to bloom out, sort of like a white-out in a heavy snow storm. You can't see anything in a bloomed out tube. A digital system, on the other hand, can discriminate between different levels of light, leaving a bright source alone and only enhancing the darker sources. The result is a nice, even view of the darkness with sharp detail and high contrast.
Does DNV have that grainy green look like other Night Vision products? Not at all. The green look is only found on the tube-type night vision. The DNV scope’s view is a highly detailed black and white look. The image that you actually see is a high-resolution display that has the same resolution as a High Definition TV.
What are the advantages of digital night vision compared to conventional night vision? First and foremost, digital information is better because it can be processed and manipulated, unlike the "dumb" systems which simply pass the light through an intensifying tube. Our engineers wrote special software that is loaded into DNV scope's digital signal processor. The DSP is the real brains of the operation. It is the DSP that allows the user to adjust the gain control, to account for different levels of ambient light. There are four levels of adjustment from very low ambient light to virtually broad daylight. Also, you can zoom the magnification of the view. And don't forget there's no blooming because of the DSP knows which pixels need enhancing, which need nothing and, perhaps, which need to be reduced in intensity. This is how you get to see into shadows underneath a street lamp, where tube systems would bloom out.
Night Vision Zoom? Explain. Think of DNV scope like a 2-8x power scope that uses a specially coated 35mm optical element- a lens with anti-glare and anti-reflective coatings- that gives a 2x magnification. The DSP then can add up to 4x digital magnification to give an 8x view.
How is the zoom controlled? There's an easy-to-use keypad on the top of DNV scope with five buttons. The front two are the gain control, plus and minus. The middle button is on-off. The back two are zoom, plus and minus.
Can you elaborate on gain control? Think of it like the brightness control on your TV. The essence of digital night vision is a combination of the frame rate, or how many times the image is enhanced by the DSP, and the contrast of the image. Contrast and frame rate combine to form gain, and DNV scope's gain is fully adjustable by the user.
Do you need some ambient light for night vision to work? Only if you are in total, absolute, complete darkness. None of Night vision products available today can function without some type of ambient lighting. The old Night vision tube systems work by intensifying available light, so obviously there has to be some modicum of light for the tube to intensify. The DNV scope doesn't so much "intensify" as it does reprocess the pixels of light and enhance them, but the situation is still the same - you need a bit of light for any night vision product to function.
You refer to ambient light. Is that some sort of invisible light? In the context of night vision, yes. We're referring to infrared light, which is a bandwidth of light that's undetectable by the human eye. It's there, but you can't see it. Infrared light comes from outer space, reflected by the stars and moon. Actually, infrared light is also present during daylight, coming from the sun along with ultraviolet light, x-rays, gamma rays as well as visible light, but we better stop there. This is starting to sound like a high school physics lecture.
What should we know about light? Light is electromagnetic energy. It's composed of weightless particles of energy called photons. These photons can be transmitted in various wavelengths, or frequencies, of energy. At the very low end, you have radio waves. Now you can't see a radio wave, but it's a form of electromagnetic energy- light. At the high end you have x-rays. In the middle is a relatively narrow bandwidth of light that we call the visible light spectrum. This is the classic rainbow of colors, going from violet to red, that we humans can perceive with our light-sensitive receptors, otherwise known as eyeballs.
And how does this relate to night vision? So that you understand that "light" is all around us all the time. The DNV scope and other night vision devices can "see" in the infrared spectrum and that is basically how night vision works. But remember, there must be some amount of infrared light for either tube-style or digital night vision to function.
How can you sum up the advantages of digital night vision? It's a smart system so the darkness is selectively enhanced rather than simply intensified as much as possible by a glass tube. This selective enhancement prevents blooming out the device, or causing the view to blank out. By the way, blooming is permanently damaging to tube devices, which is why they come with those black lens covers. Of course digital technology allows you to see into shadows much, much better than tube systems- again because of the over-powering of lighter sources. And don't forget the zoom magnification and adjustable gain control.
What is the power source for the DNV and what is the length of its runtime? The apparatus runs on a rechargeable lithium ion battery, like your cell phone. The big advantage of lithium ion batteries is that there is no "memory" like ni-cad batteries and the cycle life (the number of times the battery can be recharged) is appreciably higher. The DNV scope comes with one lithium ion battery and a dual-cradle charger that can hold two batteries. Additional batteries are sold separately. The runtime is two hours.
What are the technical specifications? Resolution 380K No. The first model is designed as a handheld monocular. The eye relief at 25mm is far too short for weapon mounting and the unit is too big for comfortable helmet mounting. Our engineers are developing a low zoom magnification, lightweight, longer eye relief version for weapon mounting. A helmet version may be developed if there's sufficient demand.
With its digital technology, is it possible to download the images from the DNV scope? Yes of course, and that's another of the big benefits of digital night vision technology. Our engineers are developing a follow-on model with a wi-fi or Bluetooth type of wireless transmitter that will send the images directly to a viewing screen, a laptop, a hard drive, any other media source you choose. This model will launch in 2008.
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Digital Night Vision Scope Questions and Answers |