High speed thermal imaging cameras - When 60fps is just not enough !

[Fraser]

This is a post for those readers who are interested in high speed thermal imaging. As many will know, the common frame rate for consumer grade thermal cameras outside of the USA is <9fps. There are 30fps or 60fps pro-sumer cameras available and 120fps is to be found for more demanding tasks such as Motor Racing thermal analysis.

For some forum members, the <9fps frame rate is somewhat restrictive and they go in search of 30fps or even faster frame rate cameras. What some readers may not be aware of is that there are thermal cameras capable of significantly higher frame rates. Take a look at the details bellow:

320 x 256 pixels @ 432fps
128 x 128 pixels @ 1502fps
64 x 64 pixels @ 3948fps
64 x 4 pixels @ 43103fps

The above details belong to one camera that dates back to 2005 ! The camera offers the user full resolution, or windowed resolution. As the resolution is reduced, the frame rate increases. The frame rate may be set in 0.1fps increments up to the maximum for any selected resolution.

It is possible to capture high speed events with such a camera in order to analyse the thermal profile. The high speed recording is fully radiometric, meaning that every frame contains a full set of radiometric data

It will come as no surprise that such a camera was very expensive and a tightly controlled technology. The current equivalent models remain very expensive. These cameras were often used in scientific applications where budgets were healthy and the need for advanced high speed thermal imaging could be justified.

So why am I telling you all this ? Well because I will be using one of these high speed cameras next week

Watch this space 

Fraser

[Fraser]

I should add that high speed thermal cameras are often considered scientific instruments due to their advanced capabilities. They provide many configuration options and input/output ports. The unit I will be using has a trigger input for event synchronisation and variable integration time to suit the task. The radiometric image capture is via Camera Link or Gigabit Ethernet to a PC running scientific research software.

Before considering the purchase of such a specialist camera, factor in the cost of the software needed to drive it as such can be very expensive and/or hard to source.

Fraser

[Fraser]

A FLIR video showing production of their high speed scientific cameras :



Very nice scientific camera units and facilities 

Fraser

[Fraser]

The I/O panel of the camera. Plenty of options 

It can be used with a Gigabit Ethernet equipped laptop without the need for custom interfaces.

Fraser

[Fraser]

I am surprised no one has asked how it is possible to get such high frame rates from a thermal camera. You most certainly cannot achieve the stated frame rates with a microbolometer.

The answer is that these high frame rate cameras use cooled narrow band-gap semiconductor sensor arrays. The camera I will be using has an InSb sensor array with 30um pixel size in a 320 x 256 pixel format. The NETD is stated as <18mK but I have seen it also proven to be 13mk  It is not uncommon for high performance thermal cameras to exceed their stated specifications in some areas as the OEM only states the specification that they are certain can be achieved. Some cameras will perform better, but all will at least meet the specification.

Fraser

[Vipitis]

While I am jealous here, I also liked the video you linked, because that seems like exactly what I would like to do in the future.

I read about highspeed LWIR camera using MCT and achieving up to 1000fps uncooled. While the bandwidth of the readout limits resolution. There are a few example videos on YouTube, but many use rainbow palettes, I would love to see detailed macro heat transfer and heat loss in whitehot.

[Fraser]

Indeed there are different sensor array materials that can achieve high frame rates. Some need cooling to 77K with Liquid Nitrogen or a Stirling Coller, but others may only need a Peltier Stack to lower the sensor temperature to a point where thermal imaging is possible. The FLIR Thermovision 450 used such sensor technology.

The key requirement is a fast pixel response. This can be achieved with semiconductor pixels but microbolometers are just too slow. It comes down to physics. A microbolometer is just a variable resistor that responds to heat and varies the current that passes through it in response to its temperature. A thermistor by any other name  The pixel has significant thermal mass which will limit the frame rate. A semiconductor sensor array accumulates electrons in wells and is not constrained by the physical changes in an absorber material. Semiconductors offer very fast frame rates with ease as a result. As you have stated, the bandwidth of the system connected to the sensor array then becomes the limitation on frame rate. In the case of the FLIR camera I am discussing, the frame rate is decent at full resolution, but may be increased further at the cost of optical resolution where a window of pixels are processed, rather than the whole array. The fastest frame rate is only achievable when a 64 x 4 pixel window  is being processed. Now this might sound like a useless low resolution, but remember this is a well calibrated and accurate scientific camera. Sometimes the user needs a fast frame rate with accurate recording of changes, rather than pretty pictures.

Fraser

[TooQik]

The only question I have, is how fast of a frame rate do you really need to capture temperature change in an object? Or to put it another way, what's the fastest rate of temperature change that can physically occur in any object?

Like Vipitis, I'm also jealous. I'm yet to buy my first thermal camera and look forward to the day I get my hands on a full frame rate version. 

[Ultrapurple]

I rather like Flir's demo thermal video of popcorn exploding, recorded at 1000fps...



... but then I've always been into thermal imaging for the sake of the pretty pictures rather than the scientific application of the technology. If a high speed thermal camera came my way I wouldn't refuse it, though.

[Ultrapurple]

How fast you need your thermal imaging to be depends on what you're doing. Melt spinning has a rate of temperature change of tens of thousands to tens of millions of degrees per second. Somewhere I've seen a slow motion video (probably by FLIR) of a gun firing, seeing for example where hot gases escape, plus various bits of projectile research. And I suspect the folks that test explosives have some pretty rapid temperature changes to deal with, too.

[Ultrapurple]

@Fraser - may we ask what you'll be doing with such a high frame rate camera? Or is it another of those fifty-quid eBay bargains that we're all jealous of?

[Fraser]

50 Quid eBay special ? .... I should be so lucky  .

I will tell more of the camera next week.

It may interest readers to know that the user manual is not available from FLIR without answering some in depth questions.

Fraser

[Ultrapurple]

One of these?

[yertle]

The only question I have, is how fast of a frame rate do you really need to capture temperature change in an object? Or to put it another way, what's the fastest rate of temperature change that can physically occur in any object?

Like Vipitis, I'm also jealous. I'm yet to buy my first thermal camera and look forward to the day I get my hands on a full frame rate version. 

I used to work on these science cameras (a competitive product), and people used high framerate for all sorts of interesting applications, such as looking at combustion chambers in engines.

[Vipitis]

working on scientific thermal cameras to develop rocket engines, that is a place I would love to be at... I shouldn't look at this thread any longer...

a note to add. Looking at local specialists with thermal cameras, I found one very interesting processing technique with is asking me more question.

https://youtu.be/fRN6ooSuRfY

they call it binning while increase framerate and resolution.

[eKretz]

This one is pretty good:

https://youtu.be/y-Hid8yriiA

[Fraser]

I personally like this video from FLIR. Sadly there are no humming birds anywhere near me.

I have seen thermal imaging of honey bees though and that shows the work their wing muscles are doing and the resultant heat.

https://youtu.be/pRaR72v3L98

Fraser

[Fraser]

Then there is the artistic stuff 

https://youtu.be/flAtYQvriAI

Fraser

[Fraser]

And not forgetting the impressive automatic pistol imaging showing heat distribution in the ejected cartridge casing and hot material coming out of the ejector port !

https://youtu.be/roddQPTZ-J4

Fraser

[Ultrapurple]

@Fraser  - I think the pistol video you found was probably one I was thinking of.

If anyone from FLIR or any other thermal imaging equipment manufacturer is reading this, I believe i could bring a lot of interesting new idea and would make an interesting addition to your demo team / stock footage crew.

[Fraser]

FLIR have a good car airbag deployment thermal video somewhere too. Lots of hot expanding and venting gasses involved !

Fraser

[Fraser]

The air bag deployment imaging is in this FLIR presentation......

Airbag Deployment video is at 1 minute 32 seconds

https://youtu.be/kpZ_rqODNXk

Fraser

[Fraser]

Compare the FLIR airbag video to that of a standard thermal camera......

http://youtu.be/_Zw744kN_aM

Fraser

[Fraser]

A better FLIR video that also includes the the Airbag deployment ......

http://youtu.be/gC6f_3debvg

Fraser

[Fraser]

Well I collected the FLIR SC4000 today 

The camera is even better than I had hoped. It is a true scientific thermal camera with masses of functionality that is not normally found in generic thermal imaging equipment.

I was surprised when I found that FLIR could not provide the cameras user manual on the public servers due to ITAR regulations    Now that I have the two user manuals in front of me, I understand. As this is a scientific instrument, it’s user manual contains an awful lot of design detail that is not normally public information. This is the first thermal camera user manual I have seen that contains multiple block diagrams and technical desciptions. You may wonder why such technical detail is needed, well this camera offers a lot of configuration options and the user needs to understand how the camera is designed in order to change key settings in its configuration. You can even change the voltages applied to the sensor array ! Thermal cameras do not normally offer such deep access to the system to the user.

The camera cooler is also better than expected. The SC4000 contains a linear Stirling Cooler that contains an oscillating linear stroke piston. The linear piston compressor design has a longer operational life than the conventional rotary crank, connecting rod and piston type.

The camera came with all its originally supplied accessories plus a specialist high temperature glass filter. The supplied lens is a Janos 25mm (21 degree HFOV) wideband unit of excellent quality. The supplied software includes FLIR Researcher 2.8, FLIR Quickreport and the SC4000 GUI for specialist configuration.

This is likely the highest performing thermal camera in my collection   I am a very happy chap tonight.

Sadly the story behind this camera appears quite sad. It belonged to a company that appears to have gone out of business due to family issues and has languished in a corner of a workshop for two years. The owner wanted it to go to a good home where it would be appreciated. Well it has certainly found that home with me

More about the camera soon. Maybe in a fresh thread ?

Fraser

[Vipitis]

wait. you are not just using one... you own it? That is crazy. I would be heavily interested to see how the very high thermal resolution and high speed capture allows you to see indirect body functions(reflexes) in blood vessels and muscle retractions. Certainly something special to call your own. I hope to work with this tech one day.

[Fraser]

Yes, I broke my rule about not buying any more cameras. I just could not resist it as the price was right 

Having Quickly tested it this evening, it is cooling very quickly to 76.1K and providing a thermal image
It is working perfectly The Stirling Cooler is so quiet that I did not think it was running when I first switched it on. The two little forced air cooling fans for the Stirling cooler heat sink make more noise than it does ! Lovely technology 

Upon checking the Pelicase contents I found what look like two high emissivity plates of dimensions approx 100mm x 100mm. Not sure what they are for yet as the camera has internal black bodies for NUC and dead pixel checks. I have seen them in other pictures of these camera kits though so they are a FLIR provided item. Nothing in the user manual about them that I can see. Maybe I missed it though.

The camera is pretty heavy at around 10lbs as it is an all metal casing, chassis and cooler. Built like a tank !

Time for bed now. I will have another play with the camera tomorrow.

Fraser

[Fraser]

The FLIR SCxxxx cameras find uses in all manner of specialist fields, including the military. The attached pictures show an SC6000 attached to a beautiful 10” telescope for long rand work

The images were borrowed from here :

https://www.rcopticalsystems.com/telescopes/10military.html

[Fraser]

The two thick metal plates that are covered in high emissivity paint are calibration plates. The SC4000 is not like your average thermal camera. It has its own multiple NUC tables and can also have additional NUC tables stored in the PC software. As an InSb camera it does not have the FFC tables found in a microbolometer based camera. The user can set up an experiment and use unique NUC tables to ‘normalise’ the scene. That means a scene that contains a temperature range or profit e can be ‘flattened’ to show any change in temperature during the experiment. This ability can take account of optical path characteristics and effectively ‘zero out’ imperfections in the optical path to the camera. The camera contains its own NUC tables that were created at the factory on the  alibration bench. Apparently, user created NUC tables can be even better as they are a true reflection of the whole optical path in an experiment. The two emission plates are used to provide a uniform surface for creating user NUC tables.

This cameras advanced configuration GUI utility reads like the control system for a Space Shuttle ...... there is so much that can be ‘tweaked’ and adjusted to provide the best imaging possible. These cameras truly are scientific instruments and not ‘just’ a thermal imaging camera. Thank heavens it also has default settings and an auto configuration capability ! FLIR said they do not normally supply the camera GUI to ‘average end users’ as it is too much ‘power’ to trust them with. The ‘basic’ camera configuration tool in the Researcher software is considered adequate. Only heavyweight research establishments normally get the GUI to enable maximum performance from the camera. I have the Advanced GUI utility CD in the kit but may leave that well alone until I master driving the camera in the ‘basic’ mode of configuration.

My brain is overloading  with all the information in the camera user manuals and software manuals !

Fraser

[Fraser]

In case anyone at FLIR is reading this thread and panicking ...... fear not, this SC4000 and associated documentation could not be in safer hands I am a British Citizen with no intention of moving this camera out of the United Kingdom. You can message me if you have any concerns

Hopefully no black helicopters will be descending upon my location. If I go silent, you will know why

Fraser

[Fraser]

Some pretty poor pictures I just took of the GUI section of the SC series user manual. Sorry about the poor clarity but you will get the idea of what can be adjusted in the standard GUI.

I have to be careful what I share from the manual as I am aware that some(many) technical details are sensitive. Please do not ask for copies of the manuals as they are a restricted circulation document and I cannot share them.

Fraser

[eKretz]

That is wicked cool. All those adjustable options are about like a thermal imaging tinkerer's wet dream. Very jealous ovah hyeah! Can't wait to see some images.

[Fraser]

I am still learning how to drive the unit so no promises on when I can upload some images, hopefully soon though.

[Hyper_Spectral]

I see higher resolutions mentioned in the software but not in your post. Is this a camera with a 640x512 core that's shrunk for higher frame rates or?

[Fraser]

No I think not. The technical details provided for the various InSb sensor arrays show different pixel sizes between the the two resolutions available and  the lens FOV figures do not tally for a higher resolution array that is windowed in the lower resolution camera.

Fraser

[Fraser]

I heard from a fellow forum member today that the bayonet mount MWIR lenses on my Amber Radiance 1 may/should fit my SC4000 

I will dig out the Radiance 1 from the spare room and see if they are fully compatible. There seems to be a “standard bayonet mount” in the world of thermal cameras which came as a pleasant surprise. I have both the 25mm and 50mm lenses for the Radiance 1. They would make a useful option for the SC4000 

Fraser

[TooQik]

Some awesome videos posted in this thread.   

[Ultrapurple]

How about thermal imaging at 100,000 fps and X-Ray imaging at 1,000,000 fps? Argonne National Laboratory has a new toy too...

[eKretz]

Now that right there is cool! 

I like the laser weld - the weld is totally completed before any heat even gets down into the parent metal!

[Fraser]

Sorry there has not been any more about the SC4000 camera. I have been ill for a few days so have not touched it since initial testing. I will likely need to build a WinXP laptop that has Gigabit Ethernet in order to use the Researcher 2.8 software and the GUI. I just do not feel in the mood to do that at the moment. Maybe over the next few days. For the moment, the SC4000 is back in its nice cosy and safe pelicase

Fraser

[Hyper_Spectral]

Can't you use a VM with XP?

[Fraser]

My past experience with VM builds to create XP on a Win7 platform has not been good. FLIR do warn about how fussy some of their software is about running on Virtual Machines. In the past I think that was because of differences in the way the operating systems handled the I/O ports and some interfaces. Drivers for some bespoke interface cards could also be very fussy about the OS.

I have many good quality Core2Duo, i5 and i7 laptops, including ruggedised Military types that can be brought into service with a quick loading of WinXP on the drive. Thankfully spare laptop platforms are not something I have a lack of 

In the case of these high speed cameras, FLIR recommend a laptop or Desktop computer that is using an Intel PRO/1000 GigE NIC and is dedicated to the role. The CPU needs to be given the best possible chance to keep up with the high data rate coming in on the GigE port in order to avoid dropped frames. I suspect a VM based XP install may suffer issues on that front.

It is very early days for me with this high speed camera. I am still learning about it. Even installing it to run on a standard PC has lead to some head scratching for me    I will get it running properly on a very simple Win XP platform before testing other options like ResearchIR 4 MAX that runs under Win7. The camera uses a Pleora iPort GigE interface and I have not used one of these before. The Pleora driver needs to be ‘happy’ to get imagery out of the cameras Ethernet port.

Fraser

[Hyper_Spectral]

Very good information! Your posts will be invaluable to others following your steps in the future 

[Fraser]

Hyper-Spectral,

I will be documenting my ‘journey’ with this camera in a new thread. I have read the various user and technical manuals that come with it and I am about to embark on the voyage of discovery that will hopefully enable me to get the best out of this amazing piece of equipment.

If I am honest, I am still getting used to the whole idea of owning such an advanced thermal camera. It is more sophisticated than any that I have used previously as it offers so much control over the image capture and processing stages. As I have previously stated, this is a scientific piece of equipment as opposed to a semi-pro or even pro thermal camera. It has a totally different ‘feel’ to it and the menu’s are a little daunting when first viewed. I thought I was very lucky to own a FLIR A40 and SC3000 static cameras. This SC4000 is not the sort of thermal camera I ever expected to own or have the opportunity to buy .... it is all a little surreal to be honest.

The SC4000/6000 series were developed by FLIR-Indigo for use on US Military weapons ranges but they were permitted to sell them to certain approved customers as well. Hence the tight controls on both the camera hardware and even the highly detailed user and technical manuals. These cameras cost in the range of $85K to $140K 

I am pleased that this camera contains a linear Stirling Cooler unit. These have been carefully developed to ensure a long and reliable operational life. The life is stated as >10,000 hours but testing showed them to last more than 250,000 hours ! FLIR cannot guarantee that of course. The down side of the linear cooler is its size, weight and current consumption. Hence why the SC4000 weighs around 10lb and is basically a ‘box’ shape to accommodate the bulky cooler and the PCB’s are mounted around it. The unit draws up to 4A at 24V so it is not exactly environmentally friendly in the power consumption department    I only care about operational life though so these drawbacks are of no concern. The linear cooler primary piston housing also has the advantage of no wires entering through the sealed casing for a rotary type motor. Such feed-thru connection seals are known to sometimes leak, causing loss of the Helium fill. The piston drive is magnetic with the drive coils surrounding the primary piston cylinder and the piston contains a strong permanent magnet. The piston is attached to a precision spring and operated at resonance by the driver circuit.

I own the x15 microscope lens assembly from an AGA Thermovision 680 MWIR thermal microscope. It will be interesting to see whether I can adapt that lens assembly to work with the SC4000  I will also be looking at making some bayonet mount spacer rings for close focus work using the standard 25mm and 50mm lenses. There may even be a photographic bayonet mount that can be adapted. We shall see. My Inframetrics Close-up lenses are dual band so I can also use them with this MWIR camera.

So the next steps for me now will be to create a nice stable laptop running XP and installed with Pleora iPort and the SC4000 GUI for configuration testing and changes. I will then install FLIR Researcher 2.8 SR3 that came with the camera. That should work perfectly as the camera is specifically configured to work with Researcher 2.8 without any tweaking needed. If all goes well I will move the testing onto ResearchIR 4 MAX running on a Win7 platform. ResearchIR 4 MAX is the latest R&D thermal analysis software from FLIR and it supports the SC4000 and 6000 series. Hopefully all will go to plan and I will be able to run the camera on either a WinXP Researcher 2.8 or Win7 ResearchIR 4 MAX platform 

As I say, I will likely begin a new thread to document the background to the SC4000/6000 series and my experiences with it.

Fraser

[Fraser]

I have just completed a WinXP SP3 build on one of my laptops 

The laptop uses a Broadcom GigE port so I will not achieve the best performance but that is not an issue at the moment. I just want to test the GUI and Researcher 2.8. That will hopefully happen tomorrow 

I did some playing with ResearchIR 4 MAX today on my Win7 laptop. Whilst I could see the camera and obtain information from it, the Pleora ‘Camlink to Ethernet’ interface driver did not want to play ball. I did not have the time to sort out Pleora, but I am already beginning to dislike it ! The composite video output from the camera is working fine and this is how I first tested the camera.

Tomorrow I will take my time installing the drivers and software and see if I can get the Pleora driver working properly.

Fraser

[Ultrapurple]

Sounds like you are having a lot of fun! Money well spent indeed - but you're pretty good at finding the bargains the rest of us don't see. I wish I knew your secret...

[Fraser]

Well it has been a frustrating day !

The camera is working perfectly, it is the FLIR software and Pleora drivers that have been giving me problems.

The images that the camera produces a very nice indeed. They have the look of a monochrome CCTV image and there is absolutely no need fro anything like MSX with this camera. It detects such small Delta T and emissivity differences within a scene that the  contrast is excellent. She is a lovely bit of kit, but the software set up ........ Hmmmmm not going so well for me at the moment.

More when I get a moment.

Fraser

[Fraser]

I was not going to post this first image but it may be of interest to some.

This image has just been captured from the SC4000 using ResearchIR 4 MAX with the camera running at 320 x 240 pixels 30fps.

This picture is a very long way from good. I did not fine tune the focus and the software is running in full auto mode with no effort to fine tune the image before capture. I did save it as a PNG file in preference to BMP or JPG. I think upscaling and smoothing are likely active as I have not disabled them.

I took a quick look at my arm and without any fine tuning I could see the veins in my arm. Even in full auto span and centre, this camera produces a respectably balanced image.

I still need to master how to create new NUC, Dead Pixel and Calibration files. I was just happy to get the image up on the software for the moment. I literally loaded the software, started it , loaded the default calibration file and set the focus roughly before hitting the snapshot button with my hand in front of the camera ! My hand is resting on a CD storage box that is a composite of plastic coated wood panels with aluminium edging.

Once I have a better handle on driving and fine tuning the camera/software settings I will see what images I can capture and upload.

Fraser

[Ultrapurple]

That's ... pretty ... good ... 

I am seriously jealous. As, I suspect, is pretty much everyone else. But fortune couldn't have smiled on a better candidate.

  Teardown coming soon?

[Fraser]

@Ultraviolet,

Thank you. It is a pretty crude and hastily captured picture of an uninteresting target. Sorry about that.

Yesterday was quite a frustrating day in some respects. I was very happy to get the image coming up on the computer rather than just on the composite output but I am still struggling with the darned FLIR softwares.

FLIR Researcher 2.8 has a very old fashioned user interface but I did get it running with the camera. The later FLIR ResearchIR 4 MAX is a more modern user interface but there are little icon buttons scattered all over the place and it takes time to navigate the softwares menu’s. It is not the most user friendly of software applications but I have found this with other specialist software. I find the user manuals for both Researcher and ResearchIR to be somewhat lacking when it comes to the integrated camera control menu. The various menu’s are quite confusing and scary when warnings appear saying that you are about to overwrite the cameras internal calibration ! Remember, these scientific cameras are intended to have their internal calibration accessible and updateable by the user. Not something you want to do by accident though !

I am still struggling with how to carry out a NUC and Dead Pixel map update on the camera without erasing the temperature calibration as well. The camera contains multiple NUC tables that are stored in flash memory. The user can set up specific NUC tables for a particular resolution and temperature range. This gives the best possible imaging performance. I just need to work out how to create new NUC tables and how to back up the factory installed tables and calibration before ‘playing’ with them. Nothing is very simple when controlling the camera via Researcher or ResearchIR !

So why do I not use the dedicated SC4000/6000 camera controller GUI that came with the camera kit ? Yes that would be a great utility as it makes controlling the camera so much easier with its logical menu structure. That is the sort of camera configuration utility that I am used to using. Just one problem.....
I have installed the GUI on both a WinXP and a Win7 platform and I get the same problem. The GUI software runs fine but as soon as I try to connect to the camera I get an Exception error saying that file ISC_Camera.dll cannot be located. The software then recommends exiting but the warning can be ignored. Ignoring it achieves nothing as the camera cannot be found when it should be seen on the Ethernet port. Somewhat frustrating. Checking the GUI installation guide in the user manual provides absolutely no help as it is supposed to be a simple install, followed by camera detection and access ! Checking a readme file on the GUI CD provides version detail for the GUI, but also mentions a dependency...... the Indigo “AccessorySDK”. I am thinking that I am missing this essential SDK   The missing “ISC_Camera.dll” file is likely the Indigo SC series Camera dll so without it the GUI cannot talk to the camera or even find it. That file is nowhere to be found on the CD’s or installed software

So at the moment I have a working camera, working software to drive it, a non working advanced configuration GUI and a missing “AccessorySDK” program. The good news is that the GUI is not essential for use of the camera. The Researcher and ResearchIR softwares are intended to provide full configuration and control of the SC series cameras. They are just not as user friendly in doing so and some unusual camera settings that can adversely effect the cameras calibration are deliberately absent. I have not given up on the GUI and will likely contact FLIR requesting the required programs for direct configuration of the camera. That will be a very interesting conversation with FLIR me thinks !

I have worked out the full history of the camera now. I discovered the original owners company name and found all the details of its closure on the Companies House web site. They went into voluntary liquidation in 2013.

Fraser

[railrun]

I found a ICS_Camera.dll on github https://github.com/ucsbdeepspace/cofe-fts-flight-code-archive/tree/master/flight_source/UCSB/TimedDownload

[Fraser]

Hi Railrun,

Wow ! That was unexpected!  I had not searched for the file yet but you have saved me the trouble. I will download it and anything else that looks useful on that page. I am unsure whether more of the SDK is needed, but at least I can try this file now 

Thank you again

Fraser

[Fraser]

Thanks to all who have tried to help with the GUI software issue 

I need to do further instigation as the SCx000 series SDK is a chargeable software and it seems unlikely the GUI would require the use of such. I would expect the GUI to have been created with the SDK and to contain al required files to run independently. I now have the ISC_camera.dll file but as Ultrapurple has pointed out via a message, there may be other files needed. I am going to take a very close look at the GUI files installed on the computer and see if Ibcan work out what is wrong with the automatic install process. I am thinking there is a bug in the installation routine.

I have been resting today so began trawling through the FLIR Q&A section on their support web site. I found a few interesting “nougats” of information pertaining to the SC4000 and SC6000 cameras. They have likely saved me some head scratching.

Another issue I was experiencing was the thermal display only working when the cameras pixel scale was set to “counts”. In Temperature and Radiance settings I got zero temperature range and a dark red displayed image. Really weird but I thought likely a settings issue. Hence my desire to use the GUI to investigate.
Amongst the various answered on the FLIR Q&A pages I think I found my exact problem. If the camera is set to stream a linear scale of temperature, it will only show an image in Researcher and ResearchIR when they are set to the “counts” mode. Weird, but true !

I need to command my camera into its normal streaming mode and see if that resolves the situation.

It is all a steep learning curve and the user documentation was clearly written by someone who was very knowledgeable about the camera and Research software. There are gaps in explanations, or simple no explanations at all for some topics !

Some specialist scientific equipment can be hard to master in the early stages of ownership. They can have documentation issues and undocumented issues that confuse the user. An example is the “Counts” issue and effect of linear scaling being set on the camera. The windowing feature is another example. If a window of less than 96 pixels width is set on the camera, the data block sent in the stream is reduced in size to the point that it can no longer contain the images calibrated radiometric data ! The image is produced, but the software can not provide accurate temperature data ! This is likely an issue that results from the SC4000 and SC6000 being “First Generation” high speed thermal cameras. To maintain the frame rate, the image data packets are made as small as possible. This includes trimming the headers. Rather than prevent windowing width smaller than 96 pixels, FLIR permit the user to go smaller and enjoy the resultant higher frame rates, but without the calibrated thermal data.

Correction: The header in the data packets contains temperature sensor data for drift compensation. It is not the radiometric data calibration information. The FLIR CS wording is below:

"The smallest window width supported by Camera + Researcher is 96 pixels. Smaller size will leave too little space for the temperature sensor values in the image header, which in turn makes the temperature drift compensation to fail."


I am making progress 

Fraser

[Fraser]

I have made some progress on the Configuration GUI. I discovered that the Bullard PC software uses he ISC_camera.dll as it contains an Indigo core. I transferred all the loose files in the Bullard folder into the SC4000 GUI folder and tested the GUI. My thinking was that any important Indigo files would be in the loose files along with ISC_Camera.dll.

I was correct, the GUI works and offers me a choice of connectivity options now. Sadly the one I need is greyed out as I still do not have the USB driver for the SC4000. It is supposed to be on the GUI disk but there is no sign of it anywhere. The user manual does identify the USB driver but sadly I have yet to find it.

The USB module in the camera came from a company called “HardSoft” and is called the “Cielo Communications Interface”. The USB PID is DEDA and this is indeed HardSoft. The correct inf file is from Silicon Labs but I tried their drivers and no dice. HardSoft were bought by XIMIA and I tried their USB generic drivers as well. That was a long shot and it did not work.

Oh well, small steps. Time for bed

Fraser

[TooQik]

Might be a long shot, but have you tried the FLIR drivers found on this page:

https://flir.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/47/related/1

[Fraser]

Hi TooQik,

Many thanks for the link.

Yes I did try those drivers that FLIR state cover all their USB connected cameras. Sadly the driver set does not include the one needed for the SC4000

This is one of the challenges of owning a more specialist camera like the SC4000. When you hunt for drivers or other information, you keep meeting the “Contact FLIR to discuss your needs”  statement. There is very little public facing website support available. These cameras seem to reside within a ‘bubble of secrecy’ so direct interaction with FLIR customer support is required.

Fraser

[Fraser]

I have decided to contact FLIR customer support to see if they will assist me with the GUI and it’s USB driver needs. I also need to find out why the camera is only offering a raw pixel data “counts” output data stream in Researcher and ResearchIR. 

The “Counts” situation..... for those unaware, scientific thermal cameras often stream their data in the “counts” format and the host software then creates the temperature and Radiance values using those counts. Counts are the true pixel values either completely raw, or with NUC and dead pixel corrections applied. The camera is normally 12 or 14 bits and that sets the range of counts values available per pixel. It is like the most raw thermal data available that enables whatever processing the users needs. In science, such raw data is important as it is not adulterated by processing that could alter pixel values, unless that is desired.

So “counts” for each pixel are a good thing, but not very user friendly when wanting to know the spot temperature on a target. Researcher and ResearchIR offer the user different pixel data modes. There is the Raw “Counts” mode or you can have the displayed image with Temperature readout or Radiance readout. Temperature and Radiance are calculated by the software from the Counts by using calibration tables for each camera temperature range. These tables are part of the cameras calibration data package that it downloads to the host computer when initially connected. The software recognises the calibration package contents and offers the user the available options or “modes”. My software is offering Counts, Object Temperature, Temperature and Radiance. If I select anything but Counts I get a blank display and no change in levels indicated on the vertical scale. It effectively goes to “Zero Span”. Really weird.

The SC4000 comes in two calibration types from the factory. There is factory calibrated and user calibrated. Factory calibration means the calibration table package is populated with the common temperature ranges plus any additional ranges requested by the customer. My camera has additional ranges for the filters that were supplied. His setup allows the customer to basically switch on the camera and measure temperatures. The user calibrated camera comes with no factory calibration tables populated so the user creates all the calibration tables they desire using their own calibrated black body reference source. In the case of a user calibrated camera, the host software indicates this by placing (User) after the modes of operation instead of (Factory). My camera is isplaying “Temperature (Factory)” yet is behaving like there is no calibration data present. Head scratching time 

The calibration data in the SC4000 is stored in flash memory. I am wondering whether the flash memory has been erased by accident but I can see no way for the user to do this and for the software to still report “Temperature(Factory)” in the available modes. This is why I think I need to speak with someone at FLIR who is familiar with these cameras. I know that this camera used to be able to generate temperature readout in Researcher 2.8 as a quick user guide created by its original owner contains screen shots of my camera producing such a readout whilst viewing a heating element. This camera was used for a very basic test of heating elements. Total overkill and there was no reason to mess around with the calibration tables.

The good news is that the camera will happily operate as a user calibrated unit as well. If I set up some user calibrated ranges with my black body, I can save them to the cameras flash memory and check that the host software is receiving the calibration package correctly over Ethernet at initialisation.

Sadly other draws on my time may mean I have to park this little adventure for the moment. I may poke FLIR and see if they are feeling helpful 

Fraser

[TooQik]

Hi TooQik,

Many thanks for the link.

Yes I did try those drivers that FLIR state cover all their USB connected cameras. Sadly the driver set does not include the one needed for the SC4000

This is one of the challenges of owning a more specialist camera like the SC4000. When you hunt for drivers or other information, you keep meeting the “Contact FLIR to discuss your needs”  statement. There is very little public facing website support available. These cameras seem to reside within a ‘bubble of secrecy’ so direct interaction with FLIR customer support is required.

Fraser

No worries. I figured you might have already tried, hence the "long shot" in my post.

Hopefully FLIR come to the rescue and provide you with the necessary drivers. *crossed fingers*

[Fraser]

Contacting FLIR could go two ways......

They will either be helpful and agree to assist me with the above challenges, or they will go into headless chicken  mode when they hear that I now own one of their heavily controlled science cameras and I am not the original purchaser ! We shall see.

Fraser

[TooQik]

Do you know of any other users of the SC series cameras that may be able to provide some assistance?

[Fraser]

Sadly these are pretty rare cameras. Other users would also be rightly wary of helping someone they do not know with a heavily controlled thermal camera.

I will gently prod FLIR and see if I awaken a monster or someone willing to help.

Fraser

[Fraser]

Well I have done it..... I have raised a support call on the SC4000 with FLIR CS.

I have asked for the full SC4000 GUI and comment on the "Counts" to "Temperature" issue.

Now to see whether they are willing to help me. I have been registered with them for many years so at least they can see my history with their products.

Fraser

[Fraser]

I am currently in communications with a 2nd level Science camera support tech at FLIR. He has already made some suggestions and we are working the "counts" problem. Fingers crossed that he can help me.

FLIR's support response time is simply superb 

Fraser

[Ultrapurple]

FLIR's support response time is simply superb 

Fraser

Funny how companies that pare prices to the bone don't offer much in the way of support yet those that sell better kit with higher margins are able to do so...

I have written elsewhere about how I see the future bringing inexpensive thermal imaging to the mass market. Hopefully there will still be room in the market for top-tier equipment with support to match. Try getting support for that budget no-name smartphone you bought last week and compare it to the spares situation for, say, a two or three year old iPhone or Samsung device.

Adage 1: you get what you pay for.
Adage 2: you pays your money and takes your choice.
Adage 3: the poor man always pays twice.

[Fraser]

Ultraviolet,

I totally agree.

With the SC series cameras costing between $85K and $145K in 2008 I suspect a healthy chunk of the price covers the after sales support costs associated with such equipment. After sales support staff can be an expensive investment after all. I have normally had great support experiences with FLIR. The only time they let me down was with a faulty FLIR One G2. I returned it as requested and heard no more. I complained to the VP (Bill) covering that area of FLIRs business and he stepped in and sorted the situation immediately. Along with a profuse apology he refunded the full cost of the camera as well as providing the replacement ! Excellent customer focus 

I normally dealt with FLIR’s professional thermography division and with cameras in that sector being more specialist and costly, you tended to deal with very customer focussed and knowledgeable support staff. Just like I am currently with the SC4000 support call. There is an argument that such support is due to a customer who paid a lot of money for a product ...... just think of the car industry though...... after sales support can be very patchy, even with brands like BMW and Audi (I speak from experience!). I personally find FLIR to be very helpful in time of need so long as you are honest with them and can comply with the basic requirements for support. They will normally want a serial number in order to check an equipments ownership and history. If you are not the original purchaser of the equipment you can experience difficulties and they can decline to help. This often relates to the Dual Use technology status of the equipment and their lack of knowledge of who they are being asked to help. The Dual Use technology regulations cover the equipment, technical documentation and support.

If is only right to balance the above praise with some facts of life when dealing with large companies and/or specialist equipment though.......

I used to maintain Racal HF transmitters that cost a small fortune. Spare parts were eye wateringly expensive. An older engineer and my mentor explained to me that if a single 5 pence screw were needed for one of the transmitters, Racal would likely charge £10 for it. The reason is overheads..... the screw cost 5p and is nothing special, but it has been bought in by Racals purchasing department, placed in a spares box on a spare parts shelf in the spares holding facility on a site that has building management and staff to administer it. Added to that the part I order has to be picked by someone, packaged, shipped and billed to me. All of the above have costs associated with them and someone has to cover those costs. The screw I ordered would likely cost me 10p with 100% markup applied but the £9.90 would be the overheads for holding and processing that screw as a spare part. Someone has to pay, and in the case of a spare part, it is the requisitioner. Granted, there is likely a “management” fee added to the order as well and that often equates to pure profit, but such is life.

The other story I read recently that amused me was as follows.....


A women joins two friends for a chat in a coffee shop. The two friends order coffee but the lady orders just tap water with ice and a slice of lemon. When the bill arrives there is a charge of £2.50 for the water (London prices !). The lady is outraged at being charged for “just tap water” as it is “free” and demands to speak to the manager. He arrives and the lady demands that the £2.50 is removed from the bill. The manager declines and explains why.....

“You are my customer, you have enjoyed the fasciities of my premises whilst meeting your friends, you have ordered tap water with ice and lemon. That order did not come at no cost to my business. The staff who served you have to be paid for their time, a part of which they spent with you.The water is free but the ice comes from an ice maker that has to be paid for and maintained, the lemon was freshly cut by the staff which takes time and was placed in a glass which has to be cleaned by staff after you have finished with it. The water is free. The coffee shop premises, staff’s time, ice and lemon are not. “

The lady sheepishly paid the bill.

Now you know why you pay more to “eat in” rather than take away..... overheads can be significant.

Very little in life is free so if a customer wants the cheapest possible prices, some things can suffer. Aftersales support is one such possible loss as it does not always influence the original sale and is a hidden cost that customers often do not consider. In a gambling world the seller may offer reduced costs in order to gain sales and hope that little, if any support is requested. The customer only finds out about the effect of cost cutting later when support is requested and found to be either absent or of poor quality. As Ultraviolet says, you often get what you pay for.

Now back to FLIR and my SC4000..... FLIR have every right to decline my request for “support”. They have received no payment from me in the form of original purchase or a support contract. They are effectively spending their time helping me out of goodwill and a wish to maintain their good reputation as a quality provider of advanced thermal imaging equipment. They could still have declined to help me though and I would truthfully have little reason to criticise them.... remember the coffee shop scenario.... nothing is truly free where service or support is involved.

When I first heard that FLIR was entering the consumer thermal camera market I had concerns for them as a company. Other companies that made the same move have quickly regretted it as there is often a massive difference between selling products to professional institutions, Industry and the general public (consumers). Most notably, the public tend to want cheap prices, something for nothing and still get gold standard after sales support. That is just how life is in the consumer age. The companies that venture into the consumer marketplace often experience an exponential increase in after sales support calls, duration of support calls and criticism ! Not great for business. DATONG were a company I worked with who eventually decided the overheands of supporting consumer products were so excessive compared to their sales to industry that they pulled the plug on all of their consumer products in order to concentrate on just the Industrial products and sales. I feared that FLIR could experience the same issues...... and they did !

FLIR tried to be smart in how they entered the consumer market place. They created a whole new division of their company that was based in Europe. That division was responsible for consumer product sales and support. This would leave the Industrial divisions of FLIR to continue to focus on their established customer base that FLIR traditionally support.  The new Consumer division of FLIR began selling their new products that included the FLIR One G2 and other Lepton based equipment. There were teething troubles with some products as is to be expected. It was now that FLIR’s brand new Consumer Support team were tested....... and there were some problems with the  quality of support provided. Again this was to be expected as the Consumer support team in Europe were new to the job, having been recruited from outside FLIR. It is very easy for a companies support reputation to become tarnished, especially in this modern age of social media. I feared this might happen to FLIR but they are a very robust company and appear to have weathered the storm well. Having spoken to the VP of the European operations I know that, as a long term employee of FLIR, he intended to install the high operating and support standards into the new European branch of operations. He was horrified by my experience with the F1G2 failure and resulting poor customer support. Because of this, and other negative reports coming onto his desk, he flew from the USA to the European branch for some serious discussions about their operation and performance. During those meetings he tasked the support team with sending me a brand new FLIR One G2 immediately and charge it to FLIR’s internal account. He advised me of this action whilst still at the European Division.
As stated He also refunded me the full cost of the F1G2.

We are a ways down the line since FLIR entered the Consumer market and I still feel it was a risky move on their part. They appear to be coping but I still have some serious doubts about some of their Lepton based products. They are built down to a price in order to meet consumer price expectations, and IMHO, it shows 

Fraser

[eKretz]

We are a ways down the line since FLIR entered the Consumer market and I still feel it was a risky move on their part. They appear to be coping but I still have some serious doubts about some of their Lepton based products. They are built down to a price in order to meet consumer price expectations, and IMHO, it shows 

Fraser

While that latter statement is true, I think most consumers at that price point aren't as technically savvy as many of the folks you'd find around here. As Arthur C. Clarke's commonly quoted line so aptly demonstrates, a very large percentage of the average consumers consider highly technical products "magic." It is in my opinion unlikely that these types of consumer even notice most of the deficits you or I might consider major issues.

The biggest problem with that is that the large volume of these clueless purchasers make them a major driving force for product development - and often they drive it to ever lower cost, reduced features and lower quality. The best we can hope for is that they will maintain at least a few different price/quality tiers.

[mahony]

Hi Fraser,
a was able to work a little bit with data from some SC6xxx and SC7xxx cameras on ResearchIR some time ago and your symptoms sound to me like a missing calibration file or a file containing invalid data.
Typically what I have seen so far a those cameras stream AND store only raw(ish) 16bit counts or digital level (DL) data. All the calibration to radiance or temperature is done in software via calibration file of various flavor. Some formats include basic calibration in their header (i.e. the old FLIR *.ptw file and new *.sfmov may do so) or the header refers to some external calibration file. You habe a lot of possibilities to create your own calibrations in ResearchIR however ...

Most likely the calibartion data is somehow invalid as I remember missing files cause the software to not even offer you a radiance or temperature view.

What file format does your camera produce when recording? Maybe some inspection of the associated files gives some insight.

[Fraser]

Dear Mahony,

I agree, this does sound like the package of calibration files (that the camera uploads to the host when first connected) is in some way corrupted or not valid. As you also state, the actual calibration file must be present as Researcher and ResearchIR only offer scale options that are present in the calibration file.
This camera is very different to the likes of the Ex or Exx series. As you say, the conversion of Pixel level “Counts” to Temperature or Radiance unit’s is carried out on the Host computer. This offers the greatest versatility to the user. The loss of the Factory calibration is not as serious as if it happened to say a FLIR Ex series camera as these SC4000/6000 cameras are actually available from FLIR with no factory calibration installed. This camera is intended to be operated with either a Factory or User provided Calibration. The menu’s for creating User Calibration are comprehensive and include four levels levels of complexity, depending upon the users experience and needs. The calibration process just requires a variable temperature black body reference. The process is detailed via on screen user instructions as a calibration is carried out. Very well thought through. If I have to, I will create my own set of 2 Point Calibration tables. I wanted to ask FLIRabout the issue first in case it was something that I could rectify to enable the Factory Calibration.

The update on the FLIR support call came in this morning. The 2nd Tier Scientific Support chap has contacted the specific FLIR engineering team who know about this camera. As a Legacy model he needs their assistance to diagnose what has happened. I have asked him whether I can access the contents of the Factory calibration files, either on the camera or the Host PC. From what I can tell, the calibration file package is downloaded to the Host PC when the camera connects but I cannot find it in the computers file system. I considered trying to capture the Ethernet traffic between the camera and PC during camera initialisation and seeing what the calibration package contained. That is getting a little time consuming for me at the moment though as I am in the middle of a bathroom upgrade ! Hopefully FLIR will have some suggestions. They may even hold copies of these cameras original calibration files. Such is not unheard of with specialist scientific cameras.

Thank you very much for your comments. I will keep this thread updated with FLIR’s comments on the matter. If all else fails I will set up my Black Body and try creating a nice fresh two point calibration using the User calibration routine. The NUC and Dead Pixel replacement routines appear to be working fine as those are regularly updated upon user request.

Fraser

[Fraser]

Having read some documents on refreshing the cached calibration file in ResearchIR, I now know that with the SC4000/6000 cameras, the calibration file is persistent after prog.ram closure and reboot. It is an XML file held somewhere on the PC. In order to refresh the data held in the calibration cache, the user has to select “clear cache”  in ResearchIR and the program clears it out and reloads a fresh copy from the Camera. I have used this function upon guidance from FLIR but sadly it did not solve the problem. I will go on the hunt for the caged calibration file in an effort to investigate its contents.

Fraser

[CatalinaWOW]

We are a ways down the line since FLIR entered the Consumer market and I still feel it was a risky move on their part. They appear to be coping but I still have some serious doubts about some of their Lepton based products. They are built down to a price in order to meet consumer price expectations, and IMHO, it shows 

Fraser

While that latter statement is true, I think most consumers at that price point aren't as technically savvy as many of the folks you'd find around here. As Arthur C. Clarke's commonly quoted line so aptly demonstrates, a very large percentage of the average consumers consider highly technical products "magic." It is in my opinion unlikely that these types of consumer even notice most of the deficits you or I might consider major issues.

The biggest problem with that is that the large volume of these clueless purchasers make them a major driving force for product development - and often they drive it to ever lower cost, reduced features and lower quality. The best we can hope for is that they will maintain at least a few different price/quality tiers.

The low end addresses two wildly different market segments.  Obviously the unsophisticated group which will not notice the defects and the compromises.  And also the price sensitive, but very knowledgeable group that recognizes the deficiencies and won't be fooled by them, and can even in many cases find ways to overcome them.

[Fraser]

I have found the SC4000 cameras calibration file that is held in flash memory on the camera and downloaded to the Host PC upon request. The file is in XML format so is easily read in a plain text editor 

I have had a quick look through the calibration file and can see no glaring issues. I have sent the file to FLIR support as part of my open case. Maybe they can spot why Researcher and ResearchIR both consider the actual calibration data invalid but the 'envelope', detailing what calibration files are present, valid 

The file was easily found once I knew that I was looking for a .XML file format  Here is its location in case anyone else ever needs it:

 C:\Users\Fraser\AppData\Roaming\ResearchIR\Cameras\SC4000 (Serial Number)

I have attached the Calibration file in PDF and plain text formats. I have only edited the Serial Number and replaced it with (Serial Number).

Fraser

[Max Planck]

Hi Frasier,
if this is the camera I saw on ebay, you are a lucky guy.
I have never used that model but a few things from experience.
The FPA is an InSb, which means it is sensitive, roughly, in the 1-5 um band, even if cooled MWIR systems are usually advertised as 3-5 um. To avoid sunlight reflections and other problems, the lens (or sometimes the FPA window) has a filter layer reducing that band. If you can see through the window there is probably no filter here - good news. You wrote you have a wideband lens. If this is what FLIR is calling wideband, it should operate approx. in the 1.5-5 um band (an you are then not only lucky, but very lucky).
If your FPA window is not filtered, basically, it means your camera can see in the SWIR band and you could experiment with old fashion cameras lenses. The old ones coming from 38 mm film systems are the best solution as usually there should be no IR blocking coatings.
The biggest strain on the Stirling cooler takes place during devar cooling down, so it is usually better to leave the camera operating, even for 1-2 h, than to switch it on-off-on.

If the problem with USB drivers is not solved, you could always try with the Camera Link interface.

[Fraser]

@Max Planck,

The camera is Pt No. 420-0044-04-00BB but I have been unable to determine which cold filter passband is fitted.

The lens is a very nice wideband 1.5um to 5um Janos NYCTEA 25mm optic. I attach the datasheet. As you likely know, wideband lenses tend to be fitted to wideband 1.5um to 5um cameras. The requirements of a 3um to 5um lens being covered by the Janos ASIO range of lenses. There seems little reason to fit the NYCTEA wide band lens to a standard 3um to 5um Camera.

Whilst testing the SC4000 I could clearly see my wife moving around in the adjacent room through the glass panes in the dividing doors. This camera appears to be happy to image through toughened glass 

The original use of this camera involved imaging heat sources through high temperature glass and ceramics. The camera came with two FLIR specialist filters. One is the the GHT (Glass High Temperature) and the other is the TGL (Through Glass). The cameras factory generated calibration tables cater for these two filters and I have the FLIR user manual that came with them. Sadly I cannot find their pass and details 

As this camera was used to image though Borosilicate glass etc, I believe it might well be the wideband 1.5um (SWIR) to 5um (MWIR) model. I attach the transmission graphs for Borosilicate and fused silica glass. She is also capable of radiometric data collection up to 2000 Degrees C 

I did say this was a very special camera She is a beauty.

Fraser

[Fraser]

I have been taking a look at the calibration file I found earlier today. I think I now understand why I am having a problem obtaining Temperature and Radiance conversions from the Counts output of the camera....

The camera appears to have been calibrated in only two use scenarios.... when fitted with the GHT filter and when fitted with the TGL- ND2 filter.

Each Range Calibration entry consists of the following:

Calibcase
Calibconst
FPAconst
Stdconst
Tcpconst


These are present for all ranges but the GHT and TGL-ND2 have additional entries after the Tcpconst. These additional entries are the factory Black Body calibration points that enable the host software to establish the correlation of Reference source temperature to camera FPA count reading. My camera was used in a scenario that involved the GHT and TGL-ND2 filters only. As such it would appear to have been calibrated for only those two scenarios.

I can test this easily enough and even do some cutting and pasting within the Calibration file to test this theory. I think I may now have my answer to the weird Counts only situation in the modes menu. It may also explain the “SP” suffix in the calibration Ilene part number for my camera .... “SP” for “Special” ? As in Special calibration for a customer using the GHT and TGL-ND2 filters and not the standard calibration. The standard calibration range file entries were left in place so the Host Software displays it but has no data on which to calculate the Counts to Temperature, or Counts to Radiance conversion. Hence my ‘issue’

To solve this I can create User calibration entries with my Black Body reference sources. I could even use the data collected to add the missing calibration points to the cameras factory calibration files.... if I can find out how to safely over-write the XML file in the cameras flash memory. Alternatively I can just edit the factory XML file in the Host Software or just work with User calibration entries in the range selection menu.

Time for bed now. I think I may have solved this little mystery now 

Fraser

[Max Planck]

From the data you have posted, it looks like your camera was configured for a very specific application, i.e. glass manufacturing process control. As the manufacturer charges for every single calibration file, only what was needed was choosen. Idem for the lens. In fact you have now a 1-3 um SWIR configuration, not a wideband one. Given the prices asked for a 1-5 um wideband lens I can understand that.
Now, an educated guess, GHT and TGL-ND2 stands for glass high temperature and neutral density 2, respectively. The first filter is probably a narrow-bandpass interference filter to measure glass surface temperature during the manufacturing process. The second one is for reducing the amount of energey reaching the FPA from high temperature sources, typical for glass processes. Both filters are so called warm filters, source of noise emission and reflections, thus, each one requiring a dedicated NUC and calibration.

@Max Planck,

Whilst testing the SC4000 I could clearly see my wife moving around in the adjacent room through the glass panes in the dividing doors. This camera appears to be happy to image through toughened glass 

It all depends on the glass composition, coatings, thickness and source temperature, but a standard glass should give you an acceptable transmission up to 2.X um for room temperature sources.

Max

[Fraser]

Hi Max,

Thank you very much for the excellent explanation. That is very helpful

On the lens front, the lens has a part number on its face plate (Janos 41159) so I was able to find it easily. The face plate states 1.5um-5um.  I also have 25mm and 50mm bayonet mount lenses for my AMBER Raytheon Radiance 1 MWIR cooled camera that I am advised will fit the SC4000 as well.

At this point in time the camera is providing Counts for each pixel. Thankfully this is a common configuration that permits ResearchIR to do the data and image processing. I can set NUC and Dead pixel correction in the camera (Camera side correction) or in ResearchIR (PC side correction) or even both ! The calibration process that links the counts of a target to a temperature or Radiance unit is also available in two forms. Factory calibration is stored in the camera flash memory and is not normally editable to void accidental deletion or corruption. The user can create their own unique calibration tables as well. These can be uploaded to the cameras flash memory and are accessible for deletion when not required. This is my lifeline as I can create all the calibration tables I need via the camera controller within ResearchIR These scientific thermal cameras are so versatile and in this case, the versatility means that a camera calibrated for a specialist role can be repurposed without any great drama 

I have presented my theory on the situation to FLIR CS and asked for their engineers comment. The very helpful chap working on my case is hunting for the Camera GUI and USB driver. The camera is now considered obsolete, being 10 years old. I am hopeful that they have archived the GUI software as it contains a hidden manufacturing menu that is detailed in my SC4000 user manual. That could be a very useful tool 

In a worst case scenario, the incomplete GUI that I gave may now be operational since my file grafting attempt but I cannot test it without the USB driver. If the driver cannot be found I can resort to RS232 communications between the GUI and Cameras auxiliary port that provides RS232 legacy communications. Sadly the Camera link port is not supported in the GUI and is used only for connection to the dedicated high speed data recorder (HSDR) connection.

Fraser

[Fraser]

I just did a search on the FLIR part number (322-0005-02) that, according to the calibration file, is the lens fitted to my camera. I found an interesting legal submission for a case where Merlin Cameras were part of the evidence package. I found one of the Merlins had a FLIR 322-0005-02 lens with it and it was a 3.5um to 5um MWIR Camera.

https://manualzz.com/doc/6632729/print

As previously stated. Why would an expensive Wide band lens be fitted to a MWIR only camera ? All a little confusing.

I just checked and the label on the Janos lens case suggests that it is a Wide band unit.

Fraser

[Fraser]

Ok, lens 'mystery' solved 

I checked the ID label on the Janos lens case and attach a picture. The label contains the following pertinent information:

P/N: 41159-AA1
NYCTEA 25MM F/2.3 1.5-5um
W/O: 442192-004
322-0005-11

Broadband (hand written)

This all correlates with what is written around the lens face plate 

But why is the calibration table showing a different lens Part Number that is also seen being used on a MWIR camera ?
My thought is that it was laziness on the part of the calibration officer ! The SC4000 standard camera is normally supplied with a 25mm MWIR lens Part Number 322-0005-02 which I suspect is the JANOS ASIO lens that I have seen fitted to other SC4000 and SC6000 MWIR cameras. Instead of updating the default calibration file with my cameras specifics, the calibration officer just added the two additional filter ranges and left the rest of the calibration file as default entries. Hence the confusion of seeing ranges that I could select in Researcher and ResearchIR, but that produced no imagery or scaling due to a lack of the required calibration data. The correct approach would have been to edit the default calibration XML file to accurately reflect the camera build. The lens details should have been changed to those of the wide-band lens and the ranges that were not required, disabled or deleted so that ResearchIR did not show their presence.

Personally, I am pleased that the calibration officer was lazy as the ranges that contain no calibration data provide me with the template for creating my own calibrated ranges. 

I am a perfectionist and believe that calibration files should accurately reflect the equipment to which they belong. I suspect that this camera was a special order and as time is money, the calibration was completed in the quickest possible way using default files that just had the additional filter calibration entries added.

I can now understand why the company that purchased this camera chose such an expensive model. They needed the cooled InSb unfiltered sensor array in order to image the particular part of the infrared spectrum below 3.5um that they were interested in for their R&D work.

I love researching little mysteries relating to my cameras histories. I had already established how the camera came to be released from its original duties, the details of the company closure and now I have a pretty good idea why it was chosen in the first place for the R&D work that was being done. This camera appears to be a "Special Order" that is detailed and offered in the brochures. The order likely detailed the required use and FLIR fulfilled the customers needs with a custom package that comprised the Wideband SC4000, Wideband 25mm lens, two specialist warm Filters that mount in the rear of the lens and the related calibration for such. That must have been quite an expensive purchase in 2008 !

I feel very fortunate to own this lovely camera and I will hopefully learn much from its use. I tested the cool down time to reach 77K from ambient (approx 20C) and it was just 5 minutes  The cooler looks to be in good condition and, being a linear design, should last a long time yet 

I took a calculated risk when buying this camera. It was a lot of money to risk but I got very lucky. I think for £930 I did well.

Fraser

[Fraser]

I will be taking a closer look at the XML calibration file entries in an effort to identify what each entry is responsible for.
I have already clearly identified a group of entries allocated to each camera range.

Each Range has the following entry headings:

Calibcase
Calibconst
FPAconst
Stdconst
Tcpconst

Calibcase describes the range.
Calibconst contains a line at the end that details how many calibration points follow.

The ranges that use the two special filters have a number of "CPOINT" entries after Calibconst. These CPOINT entries detail the temperature of the black body reference and the "Count" reading that the camera generated for that spot temperature.

FLIR details the black body calibration procedure in full. Basically the User can create their own Range and use a black body reference to calibrate it. The minimum number of calibration points (CPOINT) entries is 2 for any range. The software uses the CPOINT data to create a temperature to counts calibration curve. FLIR recommends more than 2 point calibration though. This will create a more accurate Counts to temperature or radiance curve. This is especially important when dealing with the less than perfect transmission spectrum of a filter. In the case of the GHT filter, FLIR elected to create 7 calibration points within the Ranges 50C to 350C span.

I have pasted one of the GHT filter range below for interest. Note the 7 CPOINT Black Body calibration entries following the Calibconst entry :


-<CalibCase>

<SNr>(Serial-Number)</SNr>

<CalibCaseID>(Serial-Number)-FL25-GHT-01</CalibCaseID>

<CalibCaseTitle>FL25-GHT, 50 - 350</CalibCaseTitle>

<LensPNr>322-0005-02</LensPNr>

<LensSNr>-</LensSNr>

<FilterPNr>SPG713706610</FilterPNr>

<FilterSNr>-</FilterSNr>

<CamSavFile>FL25_GHT_01.SAV</CamSavFile>

<CamPresetNr>0</CamPresetNr>

<CamCfgFile>FL25_GHT_01.CFG</CamCfgFile>

<CamNucFile>FL25_GHT_01.NUC</CamNucFile>


-<CalibConst>

<CalibCaseID>(Serial-Number)-FL25-GHT-01</CalibCaseID>

<Enabled>1</Enabled>

<CalDate>2008-03-28</CalDate>

<RConst>13525.6</RConst>

<BConst>2549.9</BConst>

<FConst>1</FConst>

<LConst>0</LConst>

<RBFOffset>2292</RBFOffset>

<RBFGain>0.0241256</RBFGain>

<CalibFlags>69640</CalibFlags>

<TRed>648.15</TRed>

<TMaxClip>638.15</TMaxClip>

<TMaxWarn>623.15</TMaxWarn>

<TMax>623.15</TMax>

<TMin>323.15</TMin>

<TMinWarn>323.15</TMinWarn>

<TMinClip>308.15</TMinClip>

<TBlue>0.15</TBlue>

<TMaxCalib>623.15</TMaxCalib>

<TMinCalib>323.15</TMinCalib>

<TSpanMin>20</TSpanMin>

<Precision>0</Precision>

<AccSpec>1</AccSpec>

<RelHum>21</RelHum>

<AmbT>296.15</AmbT>

<AdErr>0.976528</AdErr>

<NoOfCPoints>7</NoOfCPoints>


-<CPoint>

<CalibCaseID>(Serial-Number)-FL25-GHT-01</CalibCaseID>

<BlackBodyID>4</BlackBodyID>

<Signal>2520.5</Signal>

<TrueTemp>328.15</TrueTemp>

<CPointNr>1</CPointNr>

</CPoint>


-<CPoint>

<CalibCaseID>(Serial-Number)-FL25-GHT-01</CalibCaseID>

<BlackBodyID>5</BlackBodyID>

<Signal>2712.2</Signal>

<TrueTemp>353.15</TrueTemp>

<CPointNr>2</CPointNr>

</CPoint>


-<CPoint>

<CalibCaseID>(Serial-Number)-FL25-GHT-01</CalibCaseID>

<BlackBodyID>6</BlackBodyID>

<Signal>3021.6</Signal>

<TrueTemp>383.15</TrueTemp>

<CPointNr>3</CPointNr>

</CPoint>


-<CPoint>

<CalibCaseID>(Serial-Number)-FL25-GHT-01</CalibCaseID>

<BlackBodyID>7</BlackBodyID>

<Signal>3620.4</Signal>

<TrueTemp>423.15</TrueTemp>

<CPointNr>4</CPointNr>

</CPoint>


-<CPoint>

<CalibCaseID>(Serial-Number)-FL25-GHT-01</CalibCaseID>

<BlackBodyID>8</BlackBodyID>

<Signal>4753.3</Signal>

<TrueTemp>473.15</TrueTemp>

<CPointNr>5</CPointNr>

</CPoint>


-<CPoint>

<CalibCaseID>(Serial-Number)-FL25-GHT-01</CalibCaseID>

<BlackBodyID>9</BlackBodyID>

<Signal>6479.6</Signal>

<TrueTemp>523.15</TrueTemp>

<CPointNr>6</CPointNr>

</CPoint>


-<CPoint>

<CalibCaseID>(Serial-Number)-FL25-GHT-01</CalibCaseID>

<BlackBodyID>10</BlackBodyID>

<Signal>11902.7</Signal>

<TrueTemp>623.15</TrueTemp>

<CPointNr>7</CPointNr>

</CPoint>

</CalibConst>


-<FPAConst>

<CalibCaseID>(Serial-Number)-FL25-GHT-01</CalibCaseID>

<IntegrTime>0.142</IntegrTime>

<FPAGain>0</FPAGain>

<Response>2.31846</Response>

<IsBaseCase>1</IsBaseCase>

<MeasFlags>11</MeasFlags>

<TMaxSignal>12000</TMaxSignal>

</FPAConst>


-<StdConst>

<CalibCaseID>(Serial-Number)-FL25-GHT-01</CalibCaseID>

<BMin>1500</BMin>

<BMax>4500</BMax>

<RTheor>24000</RTheor>

<BTheor>2878</BTheor>

<FTheor>1</FTheor>

<W4WT>160</W4WT>

<WT>573.15</WT>

</StdConst>


-<TCPConst>

<CalibCaseID>(Serial-Number)-FL25-GHT-01</CalibCaseID>

<TCPCalcVersion>1.50</TCPCalcVersion>

<TCPMathModel>1.00</TCPMathModel>

<TCPGain>0.000494548</TCPGain>

<TCPR>8.700459e+005</TCPR>

<TCPB>2108.21</TCPB>

<TCPF>1.20</TCPF>

<TCP0>8.125744e+002</TCP0>

<TCP1>4.161146e-001</TCP1>

<TCP2>0.000000e+000</TCP2>

<TCP3>5.922227e-001</TCP3>

<TCP4>0.000000e+000</TCP4>

<TCP5>0.000000e+000</TCP5>

<TCP6>0.000000e+000</TCP6>

<TCP7>0.000000e+000</TCP7>

</TCPConst>

[Fraser]

I think I am a bit weird, just like this camera 

I am very much enjoying researching this series of cameras, their design, intended use and capabilities. It is interesting that I have learned, from someone who would know, that my AMBER Raytheon Radiance 1 cooled camera, that I also own, is the Grandfather of the SC4000/6000 series cameras  The Radiance 1 is the ‘father’ of the Indigo Phoenix and the Phoenix is the ‘father’ of the FLIR-Indigo SC4000/6000 series. A fine pedigree 

I have always enjoyed learning about this technology, almost as much as using it ! I said I was weird didn’t I 

There are still many hours of fun and enjoyment in this latest acquisition 

Fraser

[Fraser]

I have some high quality narrow passband SWIR filters for use with cameras like my Electrophysics Micronviewer 7290A. I think I have some that include the region from 900nm up to 1.6um with very narrow passband characteristics. I remember there is definitely a 1.5um and a 1.6um in the series. I will have to dig them out and place some in front of the SC4000 before imaging a Halogen lamp at a suitable distance. This may provide an indication of my SC4000 SWIR capabilities 

Fraser

[Max Planck]

I would be careful with the halongen lamp. I have seen such experiments going wrong. You have a wideband lens which makes things worse. Anyway, at room temperature you will probably need some source of reflected SWIR radiation. For filtering I would use first standard window glass.

You could also use some colour LED's to see where are the spectral limits of the InSb FPA.

Another thing you can check is the real speed of the camera for room temperature targets. The values you quoted in the first post of this thread are usually values imposed by FPA's data transmission limits (a little bit of marketing  ). To get someting like that you often need 100 degC or more.     

Max

PS. I did forget. Your camera is (should) probably logging its operation time. The only question is, is that information available directly to the user.

[Ultrapurple]

I think I am a bit weird, just like this camera 

...

There are still many hours of fun and enjoyment in this latest acquisition 

Fraser

Is there any truth in the rumour that your master plan is to set it up in your garden to detect cats?

(Full disclosure: I believe I may have been a cat in several previous lives).

[Fraser]

Dear Max Planck,

Thank you again for your valuable comments. I appreciate you taking the time to post them. I had wondered whether a Halogen lamp at a distance of say 5m would be a risk. They produce a lot of in-band energy as you suggest. As you also state, using a reflected, rather than direct source would be sensible. I had wondered about 950nm LED’s as test sources, but not considered coloured LED’s as I thought them well out of band. No harm in trying though 

I agree, the camera should be logging its hours as such is normal for any camera operating with a mechanical Cooler. I suspect the hours run counter is in a service menu rather than one visible to the user. I do not know why they hide it as it can be a useful reference showing how much the camera is being used, or how long the cooler lasts in the deployment scenario. I cannot find any reference to an hours run meter in the user manual or in any of the camera information pages provided via the ResearchIR camera controller menu system.

One of the reasons that I am trying to get the original SC4000 GUI running is that it has a hidden “manufacturer” area that can be accessed via a CTRL-SHIFT-M key sequence (Password is indigo). That area of the GUI may provide access to information of interest to the manufacturer, such as hours run and fault logs.

It is interesting to hear that the “Marketing” team also meddle in the speed specification on such an expensive and unusual camera. I cannot say that I am surprised as they seem to meddle in uncooled thermal camera specifications in an effort to gain an ‘edge’ over the competition.

In visible light high speed video imaging I have heard that one of the challenges is in providing adequate illumination of the scene as the frame rate increases. That is just physics at work. It comes as no surprise that similar occurs when increasing the frame rate on a photon collection based thermal sensor. The shorter the period of photon collection, the fewer that are collected in the wells. It makes perfect sense.

Thank you again for your comments. You clearly are very knowledgeable about this technology. Your nom de plume suggests as much 

Fraser
 

[Vipitis]

How about a makeshift spectrometer to test the filters and lenses? A glass prism only gets you this far, but slit a grating can be made for IR with suitable materials.

[Fraser]

Ultrapurple,

Cats do make interesting thermal test targets  With decent resolution you can clearly see details of their fur and its efficiency in keeping them warm on a cold day. As we are guardians to four beautiful house cats I always have a test target on hand to image  They usually come to see what I am playing with and want to get involved in the fun 

I originally intended to deploy one of my thermal pan tilt domes in the back garden to spot the nocturnal visitors. We get mainly rabbits, wood mice, the odd rat and hedgehogs. Not much evidence of cat visits at night but we do see some ‘pass through’ during the day as we feed the local bird population. Hence the very occasional visit by Mr Country Rat

When it comes to imaging nocturnal or daytime visitors to the garden, modern trail cameras take some beating. I have a few and they offer surprisingly good detection and imaging considering the technology used and their cost. As a result the pan tilt thermal cameras remain sat in the spare room. Maybe time to rehome them 

Fraser

[Fraser]

Vipitis,

Good thoughts.

I would expect the Janos lens to be pretty true to its specifications but it might even exceed them a little at the boundaries to its band coverage.

I would like to discover the characteristics of the GHT filter but having searched for any FLIR specifications and Googled the part number detailed in the calibration tables, I came up empty. As the filters are in special mounts designed to screw into the rear of the Janos lens, I wonder whether Janos supplied the filters. As Max Planck has stated, the TGL-ND2 is less mysterious. It is basically an attenuators that, I presume, follows the same characteristics notation as visible light ND filters. ND filters can be confusing..... an ND2 is very different to an ND2.0 !

For those unaware ND2 is the notation given to filter that has 50% transmission. ND2.0 is a different notation that is given to a filter with only 1% transmission. What a confusing state of affairs 

Fraser

[Max Planck]

Let's see...
a 300 K BB would give a 1.9 W/m2/sr radiance in the 1-5 um band
a 600 K BB would give a 640 W/m2/sr radiance in the 1-5 um band
a 1000 K BB would give a 11432 W/m2/sr radiance in the 1-5 um band.

At least this is what Mr Planck is saying (the Nobel guy, not me  ).

I would probably go for a 1% filter or for a very narrow band one, especially that your calibration file for the ND2 filter includes "<TrueTemp>1473.15</TrueTemp>" as the highest calibration temperature point. It would just mean another order of magnitude radiance increase.

Max

[Fraser]

Some good news from FLIR Support.

FLIR Support in France have been communicating with FLIR USA regarding my SC4000 and I believe all parties have come to the same conclusion. My SC4000 was delivered to its customer with only the ranges used with the special filters calibrated. My camera is not faulty, it was just delivered with different calibration files to the generic version.

FLIR Support have just provided me with both the full (they call it BIG) GUI and the USB driver that I requested  Thank you FLIR CS   

What made me giggle a bit was the latest message from FLIR CS said that the USA based engineers were concerned about how I got hold of the .XML calibration file as they do not normally provide the utility to access it on the camera. I explained the very simple Windows search for all .XML files on the Host PC followed by my visual scanning of the search results for a likely calibration file or directory tree entry. As it turned out the calibration file is named SC4000(serial number) and resides in a ResearchIR folder in my Roaming profile. No special utility was needed to find or read it. To be fair, from certain technical comments I have read in the FLIR Q&A pages, I think the later SC6x00 series cameras may be a little different to my original SC4000 and the calibration data may not be cached on the Host PC hard drive. The early cameras in the series need a different SDK to the SC6100, SC6700 etc. so the firmware and/or hardware may have changed.

Anyway, I have now downloaded the BIG GUI and the Cielo HardSoft-SILABS USB driver 

Fraser

[Fraser]

I attach a screen capture showing the contents of the GUI CD that came with the camera on the left) and the contents of the BIG GUI Zip file that FLIR have just supplied (on the right). As can be seen, I was missing a few files ! I placed a green dot next to the files that are common to both GUI file sets. I have no idea why the official FLIR GUI on CD-R is missing important files. Odd 

Fraser

[Fraser]

FLIR SC4000/6000 BIG GUI installed on a WinXP laptop. USB driver installed. Camera connected and switched on.

GUI finds the camera on the USB port and all is working well 

I shall investigate the GUI's capabilities later.

Fraser

[Fraser]

OK, GUI investigated. In a word..... Wow!

I can now see why FLIR did not normally supply this utility to customers and ceased doing so completely with the models that followed the SC6000.

On the surface of it, the SC6000 GUI looks like a slightly more capable version of the camera controller modules that are built into Researcher and ResearchIR. It is far more though 

A little story here..... FLIR are aware of a minor firmware bug in the SC6000 firmware. They released a FIX but it had to be loaded onto the camera firmware and that is not normally an option for the user. This was not a firmware update, it was a patch file. FLIR were effectively forced to reveal a hidden mode in the SC6000 GUI that enables users to upload the FIX. The hidden mode is "Manufacturing" and it is accessed by pressing CTRL-SHIFT-M when connected to the camera using the GUI. An additional menu "Manufacturing" icon appears in the GUI but there are also additional menus added to the "Advanced" menu screen 

So what does the "Manufacturing" mode offer ? Well I have created some screen captures to show some of the GUI and additional Manufacturing Menu's. They are pretty self explanatory. But a few Gems I will share with you here.....

1. Access to the cameras file structure including system files
2. Access to the calibration and NUC files in the flash memory 
3. Access to the FPA size and upscaling menu
4. Control over some very interesting system voltages
5. Use of the BIT (built in test equipment) module - self diagnostics
6. Control over the temperature and settings of the NUC Flag. It has its own TEC !
7. Control over the cooler and information about it.... more on that in a minute 
8. Direct commands to the camera and a packet sniffer for all communications between the camera and host.

Now back to the cooler...... as suspected, the cooler does have an "hours run" timer associated with it. I got a bit of a surprise when I saw how many hours the cooler has on it. Here it is..... my camera has a run hours total of only 23 Days, 10 Hours and 18 minutes. That is 562 Hours.  Amazing for a 10 year old camera that has never been back to FLIR for a Recalibration or repair so the cooler hours have not been reset. This camera clearly got very little use in the company R&D department. I know that they also used a specialist AGA Industrial thermal camera so maybe that did most of the Donkey work ?

Well I think it is time for you to look at the various GUI screen captures now..... enjoy 

Fraser

[Max Planck]

Here it is..... my camera has a total run hours total of only 23 Days, 10 Hours and 18 minutes. That is 562 Hours.  Amazing for a 10 year old camera that has never been back to FLIR for a Recalibration or repair so the cooler hours have not been reset. This camera clearly got very little use in the company R&D department. I know that they also used a specialist AGA Industrial thermal camera so maybe that did most of the Donkey work ?

Fraser

I told you that the Stirling time should be logged  Less than 600 h is still a long time to go.

Another educated guess.
The TEC is probably to stabilise the temperature of the cavity between the lens and the FPA. The Stirling cooler is after all a heat source. 

[Fraser]

Max Planck,

Yes, hopefully around 9400 hours of life left on the cooler, and likely more than that if testing of the linear cooler design is to be believed

Ah, temperature control of the lens mount cavity. I never thought of that. I thought it was a peltier element attached to the 2 point calibration flag. I shall have to take a closer look in the cameras lens port.

Fraser

[Fraser]

I speak as I find and I have to say that the FLIR Customer Support representative (Raphael) in France has been excellent throughout my investigation of this matter. Top marks to him for customer focus and support 

Fraser

[Max Planck]

Just in case, the French part of FLIR is in fact the former Cedip Infrared Systems. SC7000 cameras are originating from that company.

Max Planck,

Yes, hopefully around 9400 hours of life left on the cooler, and likely more than that if testing of the linear cooler design is to be believed

Ah, temperature control of the lens mount cavity. I never thought of that. I thought it was a peltier element attached to the 2 point calibration flag. I shall have to take a closer look in the cameras lens port.

Fraser

On your screenshots the PID settings of the TEC are clearly visible. There is also a diode acting as a temperature sensor. Two solutions are possible (or both of them). The cavity temperature control using a secondary cooling circuit or housing temperature measurement and taking it into account in the NUC/calibration data.

Max

[Fraser]

For anyone interested in how the Warm Filters are mounted on this camera, I have taken some pictures.

The filter element is mounted in a aluminium holder that screws into the back of the lens. It is called a warm filter as it is used at ambient, or near ambient temperature. Such filters are vulnerable to the effects of temperature change if they are made from a thermally sensitive material. The other type of filter used in cooled thermal cameras is the cold filter. This type of filter is not normally removable as it is mounted in front of the cooled sensor array within the vacuum Dewar. The filter operates at the same temperature as the sensor array. As such the characteristics of the filter material remain constant due to the temperature stabilized environment in which it resides. A cooled cameras sensor array MWIR (3.5um-5um) filter is normally a cold filter type. My wide band SC4000 could still contain a cold filter but it would be a broader bandwidth than the generic camera fitment.

Fraser

EDIT: I misunderstood the reason difference between Warm and Cold filters. Please see the correction my Max Planck that follows.

[Fraser]

Max Planck,

Very interesting information. Thank you 

Fraser

[Fraser]

I just carried out a very quick test on the camera with it set to the TGL-ND2 calibrated range and no filters were installed on the lens. I was rewarded with a temperature scale in place of the "Counts" scale  Granted the scale calibration was totally wrong as the TGL-ND2 filter was not fitted, but this rough test proves that the Research software does display temperature on the filter ranges that have "CPOINT" data. All is working correctly. I just need to create a set of calibration tables for temperature ranges of my choosing and upload them to the cameras flash memory for future use with any host software

I grabbed a couple of quick images, one is the IR image and the other is a screen capture of the Researcher 2.8 software. No effort was made to produce a pretty picture, it was just a scale test  I had a nice hot coffee mug to hand so used that as a target. Even in the crude auto ranging mode with no recent NUC or dead pixel map update, the image was acceptable. The Grouse bird images around the mug are clearly visible due to their slightly different emissivity.

Fraser

[Max Planck]

For anyone interested in how the Warm Filters are mounted on this camera, I have taken some pictures.

The filter element is mounted in a aluminium holder that screws into the back of the lens. It is called a warm filter as it is used at ambient, or near ambient temperature. Such filters are vulnerable to the effects of temperature change if they are made from a thermally sensitive material. The other type of filter used in cooled thermal cameras is the cold filter. This type of filter is not normally removable as it is mounted in front of the cooled sensor array within the vacuum Dewar. The filter operates at the same temperature as the sensor array. As such the characteristics of the filter material remain constant due to the temperature stabilized environment in which it resides. A cooled cameras sensor array MWIR (3.5um-5um) filter is normally a cold filter type. My wide band SC4000 could still contain a cold filter but it would be a broader bandwidth than the generic camera fitment.

Fraser

I think you mixed two things, filters and the FPA transmission window.
In thermography filters are (should be) interference filters, which are composed of a substrate with adapted transmission band and reflective dielectric layers, which are reflecting back radiation from outside of the required passband. Such filters will also reflect the lens cavity radiation back to the FPA. For obvious reasons, we don't want any absorption but the world is not perfect. The fillter will reflect and radiate. The solution to reduce the radiation component is obvious - cooling the filter, like in gas imaging cameras.
By the way, you should be able to experience with your camera a nice narcissus effect.

Now, if one compares the radiation from a BB at room temperature (band radiance):

1.87882 W/m2/sr for the 1-5 um band
1.86609 W/m2/sr for the 3-5 um band
1.76881 W/m2/sr for the 3.6-5 um band

so, reducing the passband will have almost no effect on the camera sensitivity (for objects close to RT).
A similar comparison of solar radiation for different bands shows, that reducing the camera band of operation from 1-5 to, for example, 3.6-5 um will reduce considerably the impact of solar radiation on the camera measurements. Thus, one can say that your wideband lens is far from the best choice for low temperature measurements or imaging.
The filtering is usually easier to be done at lens level by adding coatings similar to the ones used in interference filters. It can be also done at the FPA transmission window level. We have then a lens or a transmission window performing also a filtering function, but not a separate filter. By the way, microbolometer  FPAs are typically using filtering at window level.   

Max

[Fraser]

Dear Max,

Thank you for the corrections. I am less familiar with cooled thermal imaging systems than uncooled types. I had read of the need to place some filters inside the Dewar to lower their temperature to that of the sensor array and erroneously thought this was to do with filter material thermal characteristics. The important issue of the filters own radiation and its potentially harmful effect on the cameras performance did not cross my mind. I now better understand the situation. Thank you 

Fraser

[Fraser]

Dear Max,

As I previously mentioned in this thread, I also own an AMBER Raytheon Radiance 1 MWIR Cooled camera. I am reliably informed that my Radiance 1 bayonet mount 25mm and 50mm lenses will work on my SC4000. Those lenses are standard MWIR types so AR coated for 3.5um to 5um. If I used these MWIR lenses on the wide-band SC4000 and create the calibration tables for them, will they effectively reduce the passband of the camera to combat sunlight influences ? I shall have to carry out some experiments to test the cameras spectral response to SWIR when fitted with Radiance 1 lenses.

Fraser

[Max Planck]

Fraser,
regarding the filters, you could have a look at

https://www.olympus-lifescience.com/en/microscope-resource/primer/java/filters/interference/
https://www.olympus-lifescience.com/en/microscope-resource/primer/techniques/fluorescence/interferencefilterintro/

What is worth to note, because of the design of interference filters their transmission band will be influenced by filter temperature and the angle between the camera optical axis and the filter. You can find a simple calculator to evaluate those two effects on Spectrogon's web pages.

Regarding the SWIR band, there is quite a lot to be played with. You could start with food control or painting underdrawing imaging.

Max

[olivir]

Hi Fraser,

I've been following this thread with great interest, congratulations for getting a working science grade camera and one capable of SWIR imaging as well!  I was looking at your GUI screen shots; the correction menu has a couple of clues about the various NUC's that have been done on your camera.  If you are using the camera with the configuration shown, you are running with NUC FL25-NOF-02. I believe this can be deciphered as Focal Length 25mm (your lens) No Filter -02.  Note there are FL25-NOF- 01 through _05.  These NUC files have camera configuration data as well as NUC tables in them.  What is often done is to create NUCs having different integration times, this is done to generate multiple temperature ranges having the highest sensitivity in each range.  The FL25-NOF-02 is using an integration time of .23 milliseconds, this is a pretty short integration time for normal lab ambient imaging.  Integration times of 1 to 1.5 milliseconds for your F2.3 camera will work better, you should still be able to image your coffee cup without saturation.  I'm guessing that FL25-NOF-04 or 05 will have longer integration times. 

[Fraser]

Dear Olivir,

Thank you for your message. Very interesting. I have not used a Science Grade Camera before so I am on a learning curve when it comes to some of the settings not normally offered on pro-Sumer/professional thermal cameras intended for Industrial use. These Science cameras offer so much control over the imaging process ! With the hidden “Manufacturing” menu enabled there are even more settings that may be adjusted, but I know not to play with things that I do not fully understand ! Those menu’s are often hidden for very good reason and one is to avoid the user messing up their cameras operation.

With regard to the NUC tables..... I believe the ones that you can see having no filter (NOF) are actually FLIR default entries that on generic cameras are calibrated for use by the end user. None of these are calibrated on my camera and it has three additional “Factory” NUC entries that do contain calibration data for camera usage with the two special glass related filters fitted. This camera spent its whole life imaging heating elements through glass and ceramic sheets. It was used to check for “Hot Spots” that would reduce heating element life. It was a kind of R&D product quality assurance check. I doubt any unfiltered ranges were ever needed or used.

It is funny though..... I found the most amazing Science Thermal Camera that I could never normally afford to buy. I bought it for less than £1000, I discussed it with FLIR and they helped me to understand why I was having scaling issues, I now have a fully functional Science Camera that just needs me to set up the ranges I desire and calibrate them..... so why is the camera still sat on the table uncalibrated ?

If I am honest I find this very nice Science Grade Camera somewhat overwhelming at the moment. It has capabilities that I will likely never need and it has so many settings that can be adjusted that I am not familiar with. Do not get me wrong, I love the camera, it is just a bit more camera than I ever imagined owning ! In time I will get used to it and will likely explore its full capabilities. At the moment I am dipping in and out of playing with it and the software.

I was initially thrilled to own a 1.5um to 5um cooled camera with very low hours on the cooler. I am still thrilled to own it but I am less sure about the 1.5um to 5um bandwidth. It sounds like that can be a bit of a problem in some scenarios which is why the generic SC4000 models contain the 3.5um to 5um cold filter.

As I have already said, it is early days and I have not spent a lot of time using the camera. I never expected to find such a sophisticated camera on eBay and to win it at such a low price (compared to normal prices for these on the used market). It still feels very surreal to me and I still expect someone to come and take the camera away from me ! I did a background check on this camera and it is all legitimate and it’s availability on the market is purely as a result of a large company closing and disposing of assets. FLIR did not seem at all concerned about me owning this camera, hence why they helped me with comments and software for it.
Maybe I will wake up and it will all be a dream 

Another “funny” thing .... one of my lovely cats is seriously ill at the moment with pancreatitis and was hospitalised on Friday. We have him home again for home care until Monday when he will be assessed again and test results considered. I adore this little ginger boy cat. He saw me through some very dark times when I first got ill with M.E. (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome). As a result I have a very close bond with him. Right at this minute in time, with Ollie being ill, the amazing FLIR SC4000 means absolutely nothing to me. It is funny how the brain works ! Normal I hope as “life” and living creatures are far more important than inanimate “things”.

More from me when I get time away from caring for my Ollie.

Fraser

[olivir]

Fraser,

I am sorry to hear Ollie is ill, I hope he makes a full recovery.  Concerning the 1.5 to 5 micron response, indoor and nighttime imaging shouldn't be a problem, direct solar radiation will saturate the detector but will not harm it. I think you could image outside on a sunny day but avoid direct solar exposure.  I have seen retained images on Insb detectors that were illuminated with visible wavelengths but the images disappeared upon detector warm up.  Good idea to use the Radiance lenses to block the 1.5 to 3.5 wavelengths, the lens will still have some transmission below 3.5 microns, it is AR coated for 3 to 5 and the AR coat is typically not perfectly opaque outside the passband.

[Fraser]

Olivir,

Thank you so much for taking the time to write such helpful posts. It is very much appreciated.

We have our fingers and toes crossed for little Ollie. He is very poorly but hopefully the vets will come up with the best treatment  plan to make him well again. It is horrible to see a loved one very ill 😢

Thank you again

Fraser

[CatalinaWOW]

Direct solar exposure is unlikely to directly damage the array, but be cautious because it is relatively easy to get indirect catastrophic damage.  Don't ask how I know.  But remember that these arrays are mounted to be extremely well isolated thermally from the surroundings.  Thetas of hundreds of degrees C per watt are not unusual.  Throw a couple of watts of solar energy onto the array and some truly amazing temperatures can be reached.  Even with the cooler active significant thermal stress can occur and the heat input may even overpower the cooler. 

Fortunately these dire warnings do not apply to brief transits across the sun, but a camera on a tripod pointed in an unfortunate direction can see many seconds or even minutes of exposure.

[Fraser]

Cataliniwow,

Thank you for the warning. I am always careful to not expose my cameras FOV to the sun but I had not considered the risk of indirect sun damage. I have only ever used a few cooled thermal cameras and all were 3.5um to 5um filtered and used indoors. I suspect the SC4000 will only be used indoors as well. I have the AMBER Radiance 1 and FLIR SC3000 cooled cameras to play with as well

I still have the AGA 680 MWIR Thermal microscope lens assembly and may look at the options for mating that to the SC4000 to create a cooled X15 thermal microscope.

As I have previously stated, I tend to avoid cooled thermal cameras as it is all too easy to buy one that has a dead or dying mechanical cooler, like my bad PM280 experience that cost me £400  I am pleased to have these three cooled cameras to experiment with and the low hours on the SC4000 is a real bonus.

Thank you to everyone who has given me advice on cooled thermal imagers. Much appreciated. I would be the first to admit that my experience, beyond actually using them in building surveys, is limited. I used to use the Agema Thermovision 880 and Agema Thermovision 550 cameras. Both are very different to the SC4000.

Fraser

[Ultrapurple]

It still feels very surreal to me and I still expect someone to come and take the camera away from me !

Fraser

I can be there soon and will be happy to oblige. I am just forging some official-looking documentation to show it's a legit confiscation.

Hope Ollie is doing OK. I have a soft spot for cats; I believe I may have been one in several previous lifetimes.

[Fraser]

Another issue with the SC4000 is its weight. At almost 5kg it is no lightweight ! The high weight is a well known issue with mechanically cooled cameras, especially those that use a linear cooler. There is a lot of metal used in the camera and the Stirling cooler. A large mass of metal for the casing can be an advantage when it comes to thermal mass and temperature stability of the environs within. The hot parts of the camera are force air cooled via air ducts and dual fans.

Such a camera should not be entrusted to some flimsy little tripod intended to support your average compact camera, SLR or camcorder. It does not need a "50 CAL." machine gun mount, but it does require a good quality tripod that is designed to carry 5kg or more. I opted to buy a couple of nice condition used SLIK Master series tripods as these are what I used in my job. They never let me down and are very well built. Note that not all SLIK tripods are born equal. Check the specifications ! Some are basically cheap "made in China" lightweights to meet the basic needs of SLR and camcorder users.  The heavyweight tripods normally have the larger aluminium leg tubes with tube clamping ferrules to lock the legs in place. Lighter duty models often use the "over snap" buckle design. There is nothing seriously wrong with that buckle design, it is just not as heavy duty as the force applied to the inner leg cannot be increased beyond its basic set design pressure. Wear in buckle locks can cause leg slipping when carrying a heavy load. SLIK clearly state the maximum loads for each of their tripod models. The Master Classic series are heavyweights whilst Slik’s buckle leg lock models tend to be rated around around 2.5kg to 3.5kg. Why get so "anal" over the leg locks ? well when you have seen a very expensive camera come crashing to the ground due to a leg on the tripod unexpectedly collapsing, you will know why 

The two SLIK Master Classic series tripods have arrived and are perfect for the SC4000. The larger of the two is what I would normally use but I wanted a smaller table top version and the one selected is perfect with its legs collapsed. You have to be very careful with balance when operating a heavy camera on a small footprint table tripod as the camera can be tilted forwards or backwards and this can cause an over balancing of the tripod. It has smaller legs so I would not use it fully extended with the SC4000. The very solid head unit is more than up to the task of supporting a 5kg camera.

Price wise, not too bad. The larger tripod was £40 and the smaller one £20. I also purchased a very nice Velbon Sherpa 450 tripod for other uses for £25.

Ollie update: The poor lad has Pancreatitus and Anaemia. He also has Jaundice due to Liver damage caused by failure to eat enough food caused by Pancreatitus induced nausea. The Liver will recover if he eats though. We had a neck feeding tube fitted today and we collect him at 18:00. He is a very poorly cat. We will be providing intensive care for him at home as he gets very scared when in the unfamiliar surroundings of a hospital and in the presence of strangers. He is VERY important to me.

Fraser

Tripod Pictures attached.

[Max Planck]

Another issue with the SC4000 is its weight. At almost 5kg it is no lightweight !

5 kg is typical weight for this class of equipment.
Personally I am using a quite heavy Manfrotto tripod on the floor, always checking the cables routing and looking for a nice corner where there is little chance for someone (or something) to overthrow it. No tripod when the camera is on the table - if necessary the tripod or some other holder for the test object. Third option is a stand, home made from some old equipment, where the camera can go easily up and down, but as long as the table stands in one piece, the camera is going nowhere else.

Max

[Hyper_Spectral]

Wow that tripod really puts the size of the camera into perspective. What a monster.

Makes me wonder what today's equivalent with modern tech would look like. Sounds like a cooled design is absolutely necessary for high frame rate IR due to the need for heat dissipation

[Fraser]

Hyper_Spectral

The pictures make the camera look larger than it really is. The SC4000 measures 8” x 6” x 6” without the lens fitted.

Whilst this camera may still look large, it is the cooler that dictates its size. There are different formats of Stirling Mechanical Cooler and these have different formats to meet the camera designers needs.

Firstly there is the fully integrated “Rotary” Cooler that resembles a Radio Control Glow plug engine ! The integrated Rotary Cooler contains master and slave pistons, a crank shaft and a motor to drive the pistons. This type of Cooler is reasonably compact and is to be found in many Cooled thermal camera designs including the Agema Thermovision 550, Inframetrics PM280/380 and FLIR SC3000. It has the advantage of compactness and relatively light weight. Sadly it also has disadvantages. These being noise, vibration and early designs were relatively short lived.

A variant of the Rotary Cooler separates the master and slave pistons and uses a semi rigid tube to provide ‘drive’ to the slave piston assembly. This separation of the two pistons permits more choice for the equipment designer when deciding how best to layout the interior of the camera.

The other common type of Stirling Mechanical Cooler is called the Linear Cooler. It still comprises two pistons but instead of the Master piston being driven by a motor and crank shaft etc, the piston sits in its cylinder and contains a powerful ring magnet. The piston is driven in a linear motion by drive coils positioned around the outside of the pistons cylinder. The piston moves through its travel under the influence of the drive coils magnetic field plus the force of a compression spring mounted at one end. The piston and spring are operated in a resonant oscillation mode for efficiency of operation and vibration.

As with the Rotary Cooler there are integrated slave pistons or split systems that separate the slave piston assembly using a semi rigid drive tube. The Linear Stirling Cooler is larger than the Rotary Cooler due to its required design, but it is quieter, produces less vibration and, in many cases, longer lived. It does draw more power than a Rotary Cooler though.

Both Rotary and Linear Stirling Cooler shave been shrunk in size for military applications, but they remain quite a large and relatively heavy component. Compared to Stirling Coolers used in some other industrial applications, all thermal camera coolers are tiny ! They have a very low cooling capacity though. Physics tends to dictate the design and physical size of the Cooler for a particular required cooling power.

The SC4000 contains a pretty standard sized Stirling Cooler that is still to be found in the very latest Scientific cameras from FLIR.

Please note that I have simplified my description of the coolers and the terms used in order to describe their parts. Using words like “regenerator” and “displacer” can confuse those unfamiliar with Stirling Coolers. For more in depth information on Stirling Cooler design, Google is your friend.

Fraser

[Fraser]

For anyone interested in the types of Stirling Coolers commonly used in modern cooled thermal cameras, take a look at RICOR. They are a major player in the miniature Stirling Cooler marketplace.

https://www.ricor.com/

Fraser

[Hyper_Spectral]

Ah yes I perused many of the RICOR listings when I first came across this thread and I wanted to learn more about stirling coolers 

Outside of thermography I really never heard of stirling coolers before!

[CatalinaWOW]

The most amazing thing about these coolers is the growth in service life which has occurred over the last few decades.  From lives which started at a few tens of hours up to the advertised life of these Ricor coolers at greater than 25,000 hours.  If you were sure that you had one of these later coolers you wouldn't worry at all about conserving operating life.

[Fraser]

My SC4000 Linear Cooler is stated as having a 10K hours life compared to the Rotary cooler used in some other versions of the SC4000 series of 8K hours.

The linear cooler type used in my SC4000 was accelerated endurance tested and the test units were still operating perfectly at 250,000 hours when the test was ended 🙂

The life of a Stirling Cooler can be dictated by several points of failure including the following

Seal or interconnect pipe failure causing total loss of Helium Gas fill.

Helium gas escape over time reducing fill pressure until cold finger operating temperature cannot be achieved.

Wear on the pistons, seals and piston cylinder reducing cooling efficiency

Bearing wear or failure causing high vibration, fill contamination and unacceptable noise

Flexture failure

The Rotary Cooler design incorporates several moving parts that can become a fault liability. The Linear Cooler design contains fewer moving parts and tends to be more reliable as a result. The Rotary Cooler also requires electrical connections to the motor and these pass through gas seals that can fail and leak. The Linear Cooler does not need to penetrate the pressurised Helium Gas containment for electrical connections as the drive is magnetic. The piston drive coils are outside the Helium Gas containment. There is no Rotary motor sitting inside the Helium Gas containment either. This is a significant advantage in the linear design.

If readers wonder how quiet the linear cooler actually is.... on my camera I can switch the cooler on and off via the GUI. There are two small fans forced air cooling the Stirling Cooler heatsinks and I cannot hear the cooler over the sound of the fans running. Such would most definitely not be the case with a Rotary Cooler !

Fraser

[Fraser]

My little Cat, Ollie, passed away in my arms at 03:00 this morning.

I am devastated and numb. I will not be on the forum for a while

Fraser

[TooQik]

I'm really very sorry to hear about Ollie, that's sad news indeed.

[Fraser]

Thank you

[martin1454]

Take your time - A pet can be a large part of the family and it is always hard to lose one 

[Ultrapurple]

I am so sorry, Fraser. Take your time.

[Vipitis]

That is just awful. I feel with you, especially with the time and energy you put into this community during a very difficult period. Take your time - we will be here.

[cynfab]

Please accept my deepest sympathies, Ollie was the spitting image of our cat Orange (short for Agent Orange) which we lost about 6 years ago. We have been catless ever since. Take care and time getting over your loss.

[Max Planck]

Fraser,
I am sorry about your loss. Please accept my sympathies from a long time cat fancier.

Max

[olivir]

Im so sorry you lost Ollie, my condolences to you and your family

[eKretz]

Very sorry to hear that Fraser. I lost my last dog, 'Gator, about 6 years ago. I was pretty upset too, and it took some time to get over.  He was a very good dog. We recently welcomed a new pup into our home, I hope that he is half the dog that 'Gator was. Take your time and remember the good times...

[Hyper_Spectral]

I'm really not the best at providing comfort, but I just want to remind you that it's okay to be depressed and sad for a little while after such a tragic loss. Try to focus on all the positive things a cat was able to do for you, though. You provided him a wonderful life and in turn he helped you in ways you never would have expected. Stay strong, you have a lot of awesome people supporting you.

We can't really move forward with our discussions of thermal optics without you..

[Ben321]

I am surprised no one has asked how it is possible to get such high frame rates from a thermal camera. You most certainly cannot achieve the stated frame rates with a microbolometer.

The answer is that these high frame rate cameras use cooled narrow band-gap semiconductor sensor arrays. The camera I will be using has an InSb sensor array with 30um pixel size in a 320 x 256 pixel format. The NETD is stated as <18mK but I have seen it also proven to be 13mk  It is not uncommon for high performance thermal cameras to exceed their stated specifications in some areas as the OEM only states the specification that they are certain can be achieved. Some cameras will perform better, but all will at least meet the specification.

Fraser

How cold does it need to be to work?What does it use to cool it? TEC? Liquid N2? Mechanical Stirling cooler?

[Ultrapurple]

How cold does it need to be to work?What does it use to cool it? TEC? Liquid N2? Mechanical Stirling cooler?

Fraser went into some detail earlier in this thread about this camera's linear Stirling cooler that uses helium as its heat transfer medium.

[Ben321]

How cold does it need to be to work?What does it use to cool it? TEC? Liquid N2? Mechanical Stirling cooler?

Fraser went into some detail earlier in this thread about this camera's linear Stirling cooler that uses helium as its heat transfer medium.

How do they keep helium from leaking? Helium is one of the smallest atoms (only hydrogen is smaller), and will actually pass through the gaps between atoms in a block of what appears to be solid material. That's actually how balloons deflate. They don't deflate because the filling port wasn't tied tight enough. They deflate because the helium escapes through the solid rubber material of the balloon itself!

[CatalinaWOW]

All metal sealing systems.  Most joints welded.  Diffusion rate of helium through selected metals is not zero, but quite low.