CART III: improved camouflage assessment using moving target indication

In order to facilitate systematic, computer aided improvements of camouflage and concealment assessment methods, the software system CART (Camouflage Assessment in Real-Time) was built up for the camouflage assessment of objects in image sequences (see contributions to SPIE 2007 and SPIE 2008 [1], [2]). It works with visual-optical, infrared and SAR image sequences. The system comprises a semi-automatic annotation functionality for marking target objects (ground truth generation) including a propagation of those markings over the image sequence for static as well as moving scene objects, where the recording camera may be static or moving. The marked image regions are evaluated by applying user-defined feature extractors, which can easily be defined and integrated into the system via a generic software interface. This article presents further systematic enhancements made in the recent year and addresses particularly the task of the detection of moving vehicles by latest image exploitation methods for objective camouflage assessment in these cases. As a main topic, the loop was closed between the two natural opposites of reconnaissance and camouflage, which was realized by incorporating ATD (Automatic Target Detection) algorithms into the computer aided camouflage assessment. Since object (and sensor) movement is an important feature for many applications, different image-based MTI (Moving Target Indication) algorithms were included in the CART system, which rely on changes in the image plane from an image to the successive one (after camera movements are automatically compensated). Additionally, the MTI outputs over time are combined in a certain way which we call "snail track" algorithm. The results show that their output provides a valuable measurement for the conspicuity of moving objects and therefore is an ideal component in the camouflage assessment. It is shown that image-based MTI improvements lead to improvements in the camouflage assessment process.