MOVEMENT CHARACTERIZATION WITH THE SPATIOTEMPORAL FOURIER-TRANSFORM OF LOW-LIGHT-LEVEL IMAGES

The spatiotemporal Fourier transform of a series of frames is proved t o be an attractive technique for object velocity determination. The ma in disadvantage of the spatiotemporal transform methods is that they r equire a long processing time even when fast transforms are used. We s how that the spatiotemporal Fourier-transform technique, which has bee n applied to standard-light-intensity images, can also be used with lo w-light-level images. The result is an important processing time reduc tion; thus when fast processing is required, it would be advantageous to detect in low-light-level conditions with intensity filters. The te chnique behavior for low-light-level images is checked with computer-s imulated and experimental data.