Consumer/Buyable Thermal Camera for Smartphones

[MultipleParadox]

After the Flir case for iPhone

The Thermal Seek for Android and iPhone!

And it's cheaper! I ordered one will let you guys know

[DipTwit]

There's also the Mu Thermal Camera project, which hopefully will bear fruit in the coming months, and connects to the phone wirelessly.

[MultipleParadox]

Interesting, haven't heard of that one thanks!

Although, between the two I think I would put my trust in the Seek for the sole facts that it is readily available and out in the open already, is much smaller (although not wireless), and also has a higher resolution.

The thermal Seek has been developed in partnership with Raytheon, which is pretty big in itself.

The Mu seems interesting to some extent but from the few videos, framerate seems very slow (although I am not sure about the Seeker's). And the Indigogo campaign has finished in March 2013 and still is in development, while backers were "promised" delivery in 2013 as well, which was pretty unrealistic anyways, from the look of it.

Anyways, it's good to see that consumers start having decent options in that field!


Edit: Just saw the Seek's sensor refresh rate is around 9hz, so should be similar to what we see in the Mu's videos I guess (and nowhere near the 30fps look of the Seek's promotional videos! but that was expected)

[DipTwit]

Yeah, if you compare against what FLIR offers, similar resolution still costs thousands, so it's still remarkable these two can get something down to hundreds of dollars. Maybe this hints that higher resolutions might someday be affordable too.

I'll judge the Mu based on how well it works when it arrives - it's hard to do based on specs alone. I think for milsim it might be worth it to have the camera separate from the phone... mount the camera on your barrel maybe, etc. but that's assuming it materializes soon! Their latest campaign update sounds like they have working hardware / software and just have to go through the mass production phase.

So many toys, so little time...

[siggypoo]

Originally Posted by DipTwit

So many toys, so little coin...

Fixed...

[MultipleParadox]

Originally Posted by siggypoo

Fixed...

Totally!
I suffer from that, a lot

[CR0M]

necro-bump!

so??? what was the verdict?

anyone else have one?

[MultipleParadox]

Sorry forgot about that thread

Working great on my iphone
Here's a quick sample I had lying around
In a hurry now, but let me know if you have any specific questions!

[siggypoo]

Must get!

[MultipleParadox]

Apparently a good amount of people reported having misaligned lens / sensor, creating a a "gradient" that would falsify information somehow.

A guy did a thorough investigation about this: http://youtu.be/hzsTsFvHss8

However, I got mine later than a lot of people as the iPhone version was delayed quite a bit, and I don't have that issue at all

[CR0M]

Originally Posted by MultipleParadox

Sorry forgot about that thread

Working great on my iphone
Here's a quick sample I had lying around
In a hurry now, but let me know if you have any specific questions!

how far away can you approx see people in the distance?

[MultipleParadox]

Originally Posted by CR0M

how far away can you approx see people in the distance?

Haven't done that particular test
But it would depend greatly on the persons' surrounding

If for some reason the environment has a temperature close to theirs, they'd blend in their surrounding pretty much

I didn't get the chance to see how the heat signature of vegetation looked like, and compared to the heat signature of someone's clothing/bdu (I'm guessing a bdu blocking IR emissions would complicate things quite a bit)

A Good thing to know is that the camera recalibrate itself constantly; The color gradient's "meaning" also change with it: Basically, the blue would represent the coldest temperature in that frame at that specific moment, and white the hottest.
If you were to introduce something colder/hotter in the frame, the gradient would adjust to represent that. It can be a good and a bad thing according to the application. you can change the gradients color to a few presets as well, including black-hot and white-hot

However, there's a nice feature in the app that allows you to set a threshold in temperature. It would then show in grayscale anything not corresponding to that threshold (i.e.: anything hotter than X°C in color, anything colder in grayscale, and vice-versa). This would definitely help you spot people in different environments

A note:
I just tried it this morning, following a few weeks of sitting in my bag (in its protective case). It looks like there is specs of dust on the sensor (definitely not on the lens...) :banghead:
So despite the casing being all aluminium and well machined, its not dust proof

Will try to see if I can blast compressed air in it tonight. Otherwise I'll have to try and open the casing :s

[beta678]

Originally Posted by MultipleParadox

Sorry forgot about that thread

Working great on my iphone
Here's a quick sample I had lying around
In a hurry now, but let me know if you have any specific questions!

Interesting... so I guess the second picture is a window sill but whats the first pic of? Box of food?

Curious about resolution and range as well and whether it'd be of any practical use in a game or something.

[DipTwit]

I have one too, probably not usable at any range - I didn't save pics but I looked at some scenes (out my back porch) including vehicles and pedestrians going past.

The people at any real (past 30ft) distance are pretty small in the image, and it's resolution is small as it is. So it's hard to make them out.

More importantly, it's hard to make out what you're looking at, in the environment. If there's not much contrast in heat signature of the scene around, you can't tell if you're looking at trees, building, or what. I can post a sample later.

[MultipleParadox]

Originally Posted by beta678

Interesting... so I guess the second picture is a window sill but whats the first pic of? Box of food?

Curious about resolution and range as well and whether it'd be of any practical use in a game or something.

Should have mentioned that:
1st pic is of a raclette grill :P

---

Originally Posted by DipTwit

I have one too, probably not usable at any range - I didn't save pics but I looked at some scenes (out my back porch) including vehicles and pedestrians going past.

The people at any real (past 30ft) distance are pretty small in the image, and it's resolution is small as it is. So it's hard to make them out.

More importantly, it's hard to make out what you're looking at, in the environment. If there's not much contrast in heat signature of the scene around, you can't tell if you're looking at trees, building, or what. I can post a sample later.

I would tend to agree with that statement, in general
But I think what matters (if one were to use this in game) would not really be about discerning objects/people clearly but about identifying heat signature in a given direction If I were to use this in game, that's how I'd use it, just as a tool to identify general direction of a potential threat, then stop relying on this kind of thing.