What makes thermal imaging camera useful?

Thermal imaging cameras are handheld electronic devices with an integrated visual display, designed for detecting heat energy. Because they measure infrared radiation, and not visible light, thermal cameras are also useful for identifying heat sources in very dark or otherwise obscured environments.

What is the difference between infrared camera and thermal camera?

Active IR systems use short wavelength infrared light to illuminate an area of interest. Some of the infrared energy is reflected back to a camera and interpreted to generate an image. Thermal imaging systems use mid- or long wavelength IR energy. Thermal imagers are passive, and only sense differences in heat.

How sensitive are thermal imaging cameras?

Instead of the 400–700 nanometre (nm) range of the visible light camera, infrared cameras are sensitive to wavelengths from about 1,000 nm (1 micrometre or μm) to about 14,000 nm (14 μm). The practice of capturing and analyzing the data they provide is called thermography.

What do thermal images show?

Thermal imaging is simply the process of converting infrared (IR) radiation (heat) into visible images that depict the spatial distribution of temperature differences in a scene viewed by a thermal camera.

What are the advantages of infrared thermography?

The main advantage of infrared thermography over the destructive testing techniques is that large areas can be scanned fast and with no need to be destroyed during testing. This results in major savings in time, people, work and machinery.

What are the types of thermal imaging cameras?

Infrared cameras come in three basic types: short wavelength, mid-wavelength, and long wavelength. Each type has its own place in facilities maintenance, depending on use and operation.

What is the difference between FLIR and thermal imaging?

FLIRs make pictures from heat, not visible light. Thermal cameras detect more than just heat though; they detect tiny differences in heat – as small as 0.01°C – and display them as shades of grey or with different colors.

What is thermal camera resolution?

Imager format High resolution thermal cameras often have a 640×480 detector, which delivers 307,200 pixels; compare that to 76,800 in a thermal imager with a 320×240 detector. Standard formats are 160×120 (19,600 pixels), 384×288 (110,592 pixels), 640×480 (307,200 pixels), 1024×768 (786,432 pixels).

What is infrared thermal imaging?

Thermal imaging is a method of using infrared radiation and thermal energy to gather information about objects, in order to formulate images of them, even in low visibility environments. It’s a type of technology that has built up a broad range of uses over the years.

What is thermal imaging testing?

Thermal Imaging or thermography (hot spot testing) is the process of using a special camera designed to look only for heat by way of infra-red (IR) energy waves. A thermal camera records the intensity of radiation in the infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum and converts it directly into a visible image.