Visible light image with edge marking for enhancing IR imagery

A display system for generating and displaying a display image comprising:

• a processor;
• a display;
• and
• wherein the display system is configured to
• receive a visible light (VL) image and a corresponding infrared (IR) image;
• detect pixels in the VL image representative of detected edges in the VL image and consider such pixels as VL edge pixels;
• and
• generate a display image corresponding to the VL and IR images and comprising a plurality of display pixels, wherein
• at least one display pixel corresponding to a VL pixel not considered to be a VL edge pixel comprises corresponding IR image data;
• and
• display pixels corresponding to the VL pixels that are considered to be VL edge pixels comprise a predetermined color that is independent of the received VL and IR images and do not comprise corresponding IR image data in order to emphasize the location of edges in the display image data.

A method of enhancing infrared images comprising:

• receiving visible light (VL) image data associated with a plurality of VL pixels representative of a target scene;
• receiving infrared (IR) image data associated with a plurality of 1R pixels representative of at least a portion of the target scene, and at least a portion of the IR pixels corresponding to one or more VL pixels;
• detecting edge pixels in the VL image data representative of edges in the VL image data;
• and
• generating display image data associated with a plurality of display pixels, wherein at least one display pixel includes IR image data from at least one corresponding IR pixel, and display pixels corresponding to edge pixels in the VL image include a predetermined color that is unrelated to the received VL and IR image data and do not include corresponding IR image data in order to emphasize the location of edges in the display image data.