Patent ID: 8818035

Claim:
An image target identification device, comprising: an optical unit which collects infrared rays from a filming target containing a target object and acquires a specific wavelength band from the collected infrared rays; a non-cooled infrared image sensor which generates an infrared image corresponding to a temperature of the filming target based on the wavelength acquired by the optical unit; and an image processing unit which generates a calculation processed image in which the target object is displayed with emphasis based on the infrared image, wherein the image processing unit comprises: a luminance histogram calculation unit which generates a luminance histogram showing appearance frequency of luminance values of pixels contained within the infrared image; a background luminance level setting unit which sets a luminance value corresponding to a peak value of the appearance frequency in the luminance histogram as a background luminance level which shows a luminance level of a background in the infrared image; a luminance level adjusting unit which sets the background luminance level to an intermediate value of a luminance range width of the infrared image, and generates a luminance shift image in which the luminance value of the target object in the infrared image is shifted linearly by maintaining a contrast relation with respect to the background luminance level that is set to the intermediate value; and a luminance calculation processing unit which generates a reversed shift image in which the luminance level of the luminance shift image is reversed, and generates the calculation processed image by performing calculation processing for expanding the luminance difference between the target object and the background based on the reversed shift image and the luminance shift image.