Infrared Thermal Imaging Footage of Town Scene at Night

Short thermal video taken with a Thermoteknix "MIRICLE 110K" Miniature Thermal Imaging Camera, with a 384x288 pixel resolution.   Much of this monochrome footage looks little different from standard night vision footage, until you start noticing the little details, like visible car exhaust.

Infrared Thermal Imaging Footage of Town Scene at Night

The MIRICLE camera product line is available with manual or motorized focus lenses.

Along with their cameras, Thermoteknix offers analysis software capable of processing images from all major thermal imaging cameras, not just their own.  And they have a sense of humor, to boot.

Fluke Thermography Forum

While wandering around Fluke's website after watching their videos yesterday, I ran across their "Test and Measurement Tool Users Community", an online discussion forum including the relatively inactive Thermography Forum, as well as areas for user discussion of other Fluke products.

While this forum hasn't had much traffic lately, there is one good older thread full of interesting thermal images, entitled Got Thermal Images?.

The included thermograph comes from Michael S, a Senior Product Marketing Manager in Fluke's Thermal Imaging Products division, and is a great example of their "IR-Fusion®" feature.

Free thermography seminars

Fluke offers free or inexpensive "Thermal Imaging Hands-on Seminars" around the United States. Next week alone Fluke has 6 such events scheduled, half of which are free, the others are longer, cost $99-$125, and include additional materials or test tools in the price (varies by event). These seminars are primarily run by Fluke, Graybar, or Grainger.

Fluke encourages attendance not only by professionals who want to find out more about thermal imaging in general, but also by electricians and technicians who may already be experienced in using thermal imaging.

These free seminars generally last 2-3 hours and cover the fundamentals of thermal imaging, using thermography for troubleshooting, and how to select the right imager for your application. If you already own a camera, they encourage you to bring your Fluke Thermal Imager to the class.

Fluke also offers a series of 8 free on-line seminars using Webex.   Many of these are centered around the Fluke Ti25/Ti10/TiR1/TiR Thermal Imagers, while others are more general and teach concepts applicable to all makes of thermal imagers.  The live events generally are offered once a month, run about 45 minutes long and are interactive, including in-depth discussion and Q&A time.   If the live schedule does not work for you, pre-recorded videos are available, these run 10-20 minutes and offer an overview of the topic.

Non-product-specific Fluke seminars include:

• Introduction to Thermography
• Energy Auditing & Weatherization with Thermal Imagers
• Building Inspections with Thermal Imaging
• Thermal Imaging in Electrical Applications
• Thermal Imaging in Electro-Mechanical & Mechanical Applications
• (See the Fluke training US site for the complete list)

If you are new to the topic, why not spend 15 minutes to watch their free Introduction to Thermography video now?  (Requires a WMV-capable player)

Firehouse Subs donates fire imaging tools to Knoxville FD

Last week, two thermal imaging cameras were donated to the Knox County Fire Bureau by the Firehouse Subs Public Safety Foundation. Full story here. No information was available on the specific brand and model purchase, the cost was given as simply "About $10,000 per camera".

The foundation is primarily funded by the Firehouse Subs restaurant chain, with 361 locations, primarily in the southern parts of the United States.

Local fire departments can apply to the Firehouse Subs Public Safety Foundation, a non-profit organization, for grants to purchase equipment. They also offer scholarship programs for future firefighters and law enforcement, prevention and educational tools and ground assistance during disasters by feeding victims and medical workers on the scene.

Similar cameras were given to the Belevedere, South Carolina  volunteer fire department in early March, depicted in the image below:

March 11, 2009

Thermal Image Gallery

FLIR Systems has a large IR "Image Gallery" on their web site, organized by application. 

The "User Map"

You may have noticed the world map at the bottom of the page, perhaps wondered what it is and what the colors depict.

The "map" is an applet from whos.amung.us, one of many site stat visualizations they offer, all at no charge. This particular visualization is called a "heat map" (no relation to thermography).

First Caturday in April

For Caturday, I present a 'false color' image of a young female Maine Coon.  Image taken with a SPi RAZ-iR handheld thermal imager.

The Maine Coon is an American long-haired cat commonly believed to have descended from the pairings of common New England short-haired domestic cats and long-haired breeds brought overseas by English seafarers. One of the largest breeds of domestic cat, females weigh between 8 and 12 pounds (this queen weighs in at exactly 10 pounds).  The Maine Coon breed is known for "Heavily furred ears with extra long tufts of fur growing from inside help keep their ears warm".

Low budget thermography with infrared thermometers

Don't want to spend thousands of dollars on a thermal imager, but interested in the science behind infrared thermography?

Consider investing in a non-contact infrared thermometer.  At under $50, these simple temperature probes use the same basic concepts, though with much lower resolution and temperature accuracy (generally +/- 4.5F.

Infrared Thermometers, also known as Infrared Pyrometers, measure the surface temperature of objects from a distance. Many portable handheld sensors will include a visible (red) laser emitter. The laser is not necessary for temperature measurement, it's purpose is simply to provide a visual indication of the approximate location from which the measurement is taken. Many people misinterpret the presence of the laser as being integral to the temperature measurement functionality and call these "laser thermometers" or "laser surface thermometers".

It would take considerable effort to produce a slow-scan thermograph using a common consumer IR thermometer, including additional (expensive) thermally transparent optics. The biggest stumbling block is the poor distance-to-spot (D:S) ratio on these units. A non-contact thermometer's distance-to-spot ratio is the ratio of the distance to the object and the diameter of the temperature measurement area. For instance if the D:S ratio is 12:1, measurement of an object 12 inches away will average the temperature over a 1-inch diameter area. Not exactly high-def.

Fluke TiR at $4K.

www.bergeng.com offers the Fluke TiR Thermal Imager for just over $4K.  Berg Engineering does not stock a large inventory of product, but if you're based near Chicago, they could be a worthwhile option if you want a good price on a TiR.

The TiR has a 160 X 120 FPA uncooled microbolometer with 100mk sensitivity, and saves images to a removeable SD memory card.   Like most manufacturers, they offer a 2-year warranty. Unlike many, full TiR user manuals are on their web site, and the product is actually "ruggedized" and engineered to survive a 2 meter fall.  Fluke in general is one of the most popular test and engineering tool manufacturers.

Fluke offers a very good picture and battery-life (3+ hours) in this price range. If your budget is higher, consider the B-CAM SD for just under $7K.

I'd love to get my hands on either one, if only for a few hours, to write a true hands-on review, but at these price points the units rent for upwards of $100/day.