Actual resolution of Flir One V2

[encryptededdy]

@encryptededdy

Flir One US$249.99

DHL to NZ US$17.29 (which is very good, shipping from USA is normally the most expensive location to buy from).

Duties and GST charges USD$55 (This is about right because the GST plus the customs handling free would be more than this and I have no idea what if any duties would be in it too).

So total was US$322.28 landed in 4 days.

Damn... ~$10 USD less and then no duties.

I always found it stupid to count shipping charges in the cost of the item... I'm not importing the shipping am I?

[thefamilyman]

encryptededdy I agree.
I got something from eBay once that was under the GST threshold.
But when it arrived in NZ I get a call from customs that i have to pay GST on the damn thing!
The exuberant shipping costs from USA coupled with the item value pushed it over the GST threshold so I had to pay GST on the item AND the shipping! Plus their stupid customs handling free to.

[Ben321]

All this debate could be solved very easily. If FLIR won't tell you, you could buy a spare FLIR One V2, and break it open, and then put the actual focal-plane array microbolometer under a microscope. Then count the number of sensor sites you see vertically, and count horizontally. That will give you the true resolution.

This debate was going on before anyone had gotten their hands on the gen2, breaking one open was not an available option.  It's been more or less settled by now.

What method was used to determine the number of physical pixels on the microbolometer? I wouldn't trust advertisement wording from FLIR. They could say 160x120 resolution, but it might just be 2x upscaled from 80x60 resolution (done in camera) and then another 2x upscaling to 320x240 done by the camera app (as seen by the fact that thermometric JPEGs from it have a thermal resolution of 320x240) for a total of 4x upscaling. I'd like an actual horizontal count and vertical count of sensors on the chip, from somebody who's broken one open, and had a microscope handy to count the number of sensors. And he wouldn't have to count them all (10s of thousands of sensors), just horozontaly and vertically (a couple hundred counts). This should be a fairly easy task, and is really the only technique I would consider foolproof.

That can't be done without destroying the sensor, as you can't see through the germanium (or other LWIR transparent material) window on top of the sensor with a optical microscope. By removing said window you destroy the sensor.

I don't think FLIR would lie about the physical resolution of the sensor, but I guess it doesn't hurt to check.

The entire lens etc. is larger in the new 160x120 lepton so I think it's logical to believe that FLIR have moved to a 160x120 12um sensor (as stated in their datasheet I posted in the other thread) vs the old 80x60 17um sensor.

Yeah, I know it would destroy the sensor. But since these FLIR One for Android units are only $250, it would be reasonable to buy a spare, to break open to do this measurement. It's not like the $25000 T640. Has anybody at all broken one open and counted the individual sensor pixels yet?

[tomas123]

the cropped result:

overlay 120x90


overlay 160x120

the old sample images told us, that the Flir1G2 is not 160x120.

Today I got my own Flir1G2 and I found the solution between the differences between visible resolution of Flir1G2 and the lepton sensor specs:

The Flir1G2 give us a cropped image of RAW sensor!!

You can simple test it with the Flir One SDK. There is a sample app (compile it with Android Studio) which show you the real sensor image without fake noise etc.
select "Thermal Linear Flux 14 Bit Image"

As attachment two images from my notebook:

(1) a flir radiometric image with the FlirOne.app (= SDK)


(2) and at the same position two screenshots from my android device


Look at the keyboard and you see the difference in field of view (FOV) and thermal resolution!!

The Lepton 3 sensor is great 
and compare with Seek 

[tomas123]

On the screenshots of  "Thermal Linear Flux 14 Bit Image" there are no mystic artifacts.

On this radiometric image of Flir1G2...

... I see the same fake noise like on my old Flir1 Generation 1 images

look at the movements of the fake(?) noise:


...and on some images are partly visible patterns!

[Fraser]

@Tomas123

Very interesting. As you say, the images produced by the SDK app are far superior to those of the Android consumer APP. The weird noise and patterning may well be similar to the tactics employed by FLIR on the E4 to degrade its performance compared to its stable mates.

As I have already mentioned in another thread, I believe that FLIR have been very careful to not make the F1G2 too good. If it were to offer a better image than some of the semi pro cameras they sell, it would upset the marketing strategy. It is interesting to note that the MSX is permanently on as a direct result of them wishing to produce a better image than the SEEK cameras. It would have been better to not degrade the APPs image with mosaic noise etc.

The good news is that FLIR released the SDK to the community so at least better performing APPs may be possible. It is also good to see that the SDK offers images that have not been degraded.

Thanks for this insight into the SDK capabilities. If you, or anyone else, decide to write and sell a better APP for the F1G2 Android, I will buy it

Fraser

[tomas123]

@Fraser
I hope, that I post since years some useful informations about Flir cameras in this forum.
And I'm a little bit frustrated that only a very few users do the same ( special thanks to old friend Aurora  )

I got my Flir1G2 today and I'm the first who compiled the Android SDK ...

cynfab made the first step to decode the usb protocol with an OpenVizsla FPGA-based USB sniffer

There is some RE going on, just not as obvious as in the early E4 and Seek days.

Attached is a annotated dump of the first few seconds of usb activity between a F1G2 and the F1 Android app.
It's not finished.
There may be inaccuracies.
There is much more to uncover.
This is a long way from a stand alone PC program.
Your mileage may vary.
blah, blah, blah.

[encryptededdy]

Wait... so the FLIR One android app saves a cropped image?

That completely explains the issue with not getting 160x120 from our tests.

It also looks like they add extra noise then do noise reduction, thus generating the weird artefacts...

What I don't understand is why the image is cropped. It makes no sense to do this, they could just downscale? Perhaps the visible camera is not wide enough? (Because Lepton3 is wider than Lepton2, and so they could be reusing the same visible camera FOV matched to Lepton2) - they also need the visible camera to be wider to allow for the parallax correction for MSX.

[tomas123]

Perhaps the visible camera is not wide enough? (Because Lepton3 is wider than Lepton2, and so they could be reusing the same visible camera FOV matched to Lepton2) - they also need the visible camera to be wider to allow for the parallax correction for MSX.

cropping a thermal sensor is a pain for every engineer and only a marketing decision
the vga camera is a low cost part

see self (from same flir image)
... and yes, the FOV of real camera is a little bit short

thermal image


embedded real image

[NathanFowler]

On Nov 09 2015, FLIR released into the Apple App Store a new version of FLIR Tools.  This version's changelog states it added support for the F1G2, "various bug fixes", and support for another FLIR device/model.  This version removes the ability for one to disable MSX and only use IR.  Prior to this version I was able to disable MSX and not have to endure the MSX noise in dark conditions.  Where the icon used to be to enable only IR and disable MSX blending is now an option to transition between MSX or the visible light only camera.

This is a substitution in useful functionality and a reduction of features.  I am in the process of reverting the older version using iFile.  If you use this feature, I would recommend one does not update if you have the F1G1.  I now see what you Android users feel, what a waste to lose this feature, something I used regularly.

[Redshift1340]

On Nov 09 2015, FLIR released into the Apple App Store a new version of FLIR Tools.  This version's changelog states it added support for the F1G2, "various bug fixes", and support for another FLIR device/model.  This version removes the ability for one to disable MSX and only use IR.  Prior to this version I was able to disable MSX and not have to endure the MSX noise in dark conditions.  Where the icon used to be to enable only IR and disable MSX blending is now an option to transition between MSX or the visible light only camera.

This is a substitution in useful functionality and a reduction of features.  I am in the process of reverting the older version using iFile.  If you use this feature, I would recommend one does not update if you have the F1G1.  I now see what you Android users feel, what a waste to lose this feature, something I used regularly.

Thanks for the heads up! I use that feature all the time and would've been pissed to lose it.  That's some serious BS, it's one thing to force us to keep MSX on in the FLIR One app but taking away the option to remove it in FLIR tools is total crap.  I hope someone comes out with a better app using the SDK soon and fix all this cropping, noise and MSX junk FLIR has stuck us with.

[NathanFowler]

Glad to have saved you, I wasn't able to restore the prior version using iFile.  I ran into some new 'Bundles' stuff introduced after I got out of the iOS scene and back into it for the FLIR One.  Thankfully I do still have the IPA from 1.5.2 saved in VirtualBox and am working to get this back on the iPhone.  I hate the iOS ecosystem and the very misleading changelogs that don't reflect what's actually changed.

[NathanFowler]

Wow, what a nightmare.  Remind me next time to make sure I have the IPA.  A few magic tricks with SSH into the iPhone, several out of state/syncs later, a few soft reboots, a few hard reboots, quite a few stuck "installing" issues, a few tears, and I'm back on 1.5.1.  Yep, not losing this IPA for sure; glad to be able to disable MSX again.  What a disaster, I have no idea why they would remove this feature that *many* use.

[OrBy]

On Nov 09 2015, FLIR released into the Apple App Store a new version of FLIR Tools.  This version's changelog states it added support for the F1G2, "various bug fixes", and support for another FLIR device/model.  This version removes the ability for one to disable MSX and only use IR.  Prior to this version I was able to disable MSX and not have to endure the MSX noise in dark conditions.  Where the icon used to be to enable only IR and disable MSX blending is now an option to transition between MSX or the visible light only camera.

This is a substitution in useful functionality and a reduction of features.  I am in the process of reverting the older version using iFile.  If you use this feature, I would recommend one does not update if you have the F1G1.  I now see what you Android users feel, what a waste to lose this feature, something I used regularly.

I don't own a One (v1 or v2) but if FLIR decided they were going to remove thermal only from my E4 you bet I would be asking for a full refund + shipping on the device. Attached image is what I think of removing features...

[encryptededdy]

Luckily the latest Android version (also has "improved FLIR One integration") still retains the same options... for now. It even adds a new blending mode, thermal fusion.

[encryptededdy]

cropping a thermal sensor is a pain for every engineer and only a marketing decision

Yeah, I don't even... Cropping a 160x120 camera image? Really?

[NathanFowler]

Luckily the latest Android version (also has "improved FLIR One integration") still retains the same options... for now. It even adds a new blending mode, thermal fusion.

My sincere apologies if I missed it earlier, can you share and/or link a example?  I was thinking (based on past posts) where FLIR Tools did not support turning off MSX blending on Android.  Honestly, looking at Tomas' work the SDK is amazing.

[encryptededdy]

Luckily the latest Android version (also has "improved FLIR One integration") still retains the same options... for now. It even adds a new blending mode, thermal fusion.

My sincere apologies if I missed it earlier, can you share and/or link a example?  I was thinking (based on past posts) where FLIR Tools did not support turning off MSX blending on Android.  Honestly, looking at Tomas' work the SDK is amazing.

[tomas123]

The Flir1G2 give us a cropped image of RAW sensor!!

You can simple test it with the Flir One SDK. There is a sample app (compile it with Android Studio) which show you the real sensor image without fake noise etc.
select "Thermal Linear Flux 14 Bit Image"

As attachment two images from my notebook:

(1) a flir radiometric image with the FlirOne.app (= SDK)


(2) and at the same position two screenshots from my android device


Look at the keyboard and you see the difference in field of view (FOV) and thermal resolution!!

The Lepton 3 sensor is great 
and compare with Seek 

I uploaded the self compiled SDK app for Android.
Try the "Thermal Linear Flux 14 Bit Image" mode:

http://www.file-upload.net/download-11032220/FlirOneSDK.apk.html


http://developer.flir.com/android-platform-guide-flir-one/

Descriptions of Rendered Frame Types

ThermalLinearFlux14BitImage
Linear 14 bit image data, padded to 16 bits per pixel. This is the raw image from the thermal image sensor.

ThermalRGBA8888Image
Thermal RGBA image data, with a palette applied.

BlendedMSXRGBA8888Image
MSX (thermal + visual) RGBA image data, with a palette applied. This shows an outline of objects using the visible light camera, overlaid on the thermal image.

VisualJPEGImage
Visual JPEG image data, unaligned with the thermal.

VisualYCbCr888Image
Visual YCbCr image data, aligned with the thermal. This image has been cropped and adjusted to line up with the thermal image. You can use this for blending in ways other than MSX.

ThermalRadiometricKelvinImage
Radiometric centi-kelvin (cK) temperature data. Note that is is in centi-kelvin, so a reading of 31015 is equal to 310.15K (98.6ºF or 37ºC).

[tomas123]

an interesting detail:

Inside the android sdk app (see post above) there is an simulator which works without a real FlirOne.
http://www.file-upload.net/download-11032220/FlirOneSDK.apk.html


The images for the simulator are real Lepton Sensor (raw) USB frames on which you can switch the view between large FOV "Thermal Linear Flux 14 Bit Image" and the cropped Flir "Thermal Image"

You can import the images with PS / Open as ... "Photoshop Raw *.RAW"

see PS screenshot (it's a rotated coffee cup)

... there are 4 lines with additional informations 

as attachment 10 frames (see file sampleframes.zip inside the SDK app):
 *-lep => Lepton Frame 164x120
 *-vis  => jpg image from vga camera, simple rename to *.jpg

[tomas123]

with the images from simulator, there you can excat show the crop factor

I selected frame 50 from sampleframes.zip inside the SDK app

overlay from Lepton 160x120 with the Flir Radiometric JPG file


I zipped the original radiometric image, because the file size limit is 1MB. Unzip and open it with Flir Tools.

[havaloc]

Are you sure?  I'm still able to disable MSX in photos with Flir Tools

This version removes the ability for one to disable MSX and only use IR.  Prior to this version I was able to disable MSX and not have to endure the MSX noise in dark conditions. 

[NathanFowler]

Are you sure?  I'm still able to disable MSX in photos with Flir Tools

Apologies for not being more clear, in live capture this feature is no longer available, something I used often.

[tomas123]

clarification of crop factor:
 
inside the SDK there is a precompiled Flir binary .so

Code: [Select]

> cd FLIROneSDKBundle\FLIRONEExampleApplication\app\libs\flironesdk\libs
> strings -n 5 libjnidevicewrapper.so | grep -i crop
...
_Z9CropImageRKN4FLIR14CResourceValueEdiiRS0_


seriously: The sdk app has crop factor switch.
If you unplug the Flir One and then start the SDK.app then all simulation images are uncropped.
If you plug in the Flir One then the simulation get the config values from the real camera and simulation images are cropped!!

see attachments (images from SDK simulation):
- both images from simulator loaded in FlirTools.app to shrink the file size
- very crazy: FlirTools for Android resize the image to the crop factor
   

see the difference in image size and calibration values
Planck R1 = 16528.178 is my real Flir1G2 

Code: [Select]

>exiftool -Pla* *
======== FLIROne-2015-11-10-19-42-17+0100.jpg
Planck R1                       : 18453.355
Planck B                        : 1460.6
Planck F                        : 1
Planck O                        : -7003
Planck R2                       : 0.013993904

======== FLIROne-2015-11-10-19-44-55+0100.jpg
Planck R1                       : 16528.178
Planck B                        : 1427.5
Planck F                        : 1
Planck O                        : -1307
Planck R2                       : 0.012258549
conclusion:
Flir has a scale factor, a crop factor and noise to depreciate a thermal sensor !

from Flir Ex config file:

Code: [Select]

.caps.config.image.settings.enabled bool true
.caps.config.image.settings.IRwidth int32 320
.caps.config.image.settings.IRheight int32 240

.caps.config.image.targetNoise entry
.caps.config.image.targetNoise.enabled bool true
.caps.config.image.targetNoise.targetNoiseMk int32 5

[encryptededdy]

see PS screenshot (it's a rotated coffee cup)

... there are 4 lines with additional informations 

More info about the 4 lines of addtl' information: http://media.wix.com/ugd/53cdb6_5191be73d1c943d78d2e1a095cb7f3b8.pdf