No it is not possible. The ordinary RGB image does not contain the same information as the IR.

However, infrared imaging can be represented as RGB for human viewing, either in "false colors" (say, making the warmer places look red and the colder ones blue) or because it's a multispectral IR image. Either way, it will look very different from an ordinary color photo because, again, it contains different information.

As Lezek wrote, an existing RGB Image cannot be convertet into an IR Image. Depending on the spectrum you want to capture, there are two ways to get an IR Image:

1. Most RGB camera sensors are also more or less sensitive in the Near Infrared spectrum. But usually a NIR filter is built in (that can be manually removed) to filter the NIR waves out before they reach the sensor. If you want to have a simple NIR camera, you can replace the NIR filter by a daylight filter to turn your RGB camera into a NIR camera.

2. Buy a NIR/SWIR camera. They are much more sensitive in the IR spectrum.

Thank you sir

What about MWIR camera and FLIRT tool sir?

Well, the choice of camera and Tools depends on your application. Different spectra give you different Information. There are many approaches for facial recognition for the different spectra. This could be worth reading:

http://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/539

Thank you for your reply... Sir...

Not possible as both of them work in different energy spectrum. RGB image has been captured in visible spectrum and IR images in IR spectrum. You can convert the RGB image to Gray image but not to IR image.

Hello Vimala,

It's a very good question. Although it does not seem possible to convert RGB image to IR image, nothing is impossible too. If you know the maximum and minimum temperature of the capture RGB image, we can convert that RGB image to thermal image. The logic behind that is just to convert the intensity of colour into the temperature unit. I have done it so many times using the MATLAB program, although the result may not be accurate but close to it. In the attached paper, I have converted the RGB images obtained from the ANSYS  to thermal images for the phase analysis.

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12541-015-0290-z

In the most basic sense it is extremely difficult if not impossible. Visible light images captured by traditional RGB sensors consists of reflected energy from the object being observed. IR images consist of both reflected and emitted energy from the object being observed as well as potential absorption and emission from any gas constituents between the measurement device and the object being observed. Separating these factors makes this measurement nearly impossible without further information about the environment in which the measurement is being made.

Hello guys,

I have similar question but not about depth and heat IR.

I want to convert RGB images to IR images (the image which is similar to grayscale).

I have attached two photos into the link below:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1qlnBhKWjscse_xR3nzkHhxkRQpEjQRYh?usp=sharing

In the first one, from left to right there are grayscale, RGB and Infrared images taken at the same time and same situations.

In the second one, the left is grayscale and the right one is IR. in this photo you can see the difference between grayscale and IR. The point is that I don't want actually to convert RGB to grayscale. I want to convert RGB to IR.

Is it possible?

I would appreciate if you share your experience and thought.

Shrestha Ranjit

Leszek Luchowski

Stephan Irgenfried

Dinesh Ramegowda

Jon Lesko

It would be perfect if you can add any other people to this discussion who are specialist in this field.

Thank you