I've got an idea for a new thermal camera.

[Ben321]

As of now the Seek and FLIR One cameras (and a few Chinese ones) appear to be the only thermal cameras at a reasonable cost. Some have SDKs with API functions to call to get images, but even these APIs intended for use by programmers (which you would think would give wide access to the camera's data) only give the programmer limited access to the data actually streamed from the camera core. This prompted some people to use the WinUSB driver installed from Zadig and writing their own custom software from reverse engineering of the cameras. This works usually (even giving the programmer more access to data than the official SDK), but no guaranty that it will work, as it's not officially supported by the company that made the camera.

So I propose a solution to this situation. Make a thermal imaging camera aimed at hobbyists. Some of us should get together and start a new company, pool our resources, buy some FLIR thermal imaging ICs (the actual VOx focal plane arrays, not complete cores), and make our own cores and cameras. Then sell these with SDKs that have API functions that actually do give wide access to the various data generated by the camera or core, including a special raw mode that allows getting the RAW unprocessed image directly from the imaging array (allowing corrections to be applied in the application on the PC, rather than in the camera itself, so that programmers can get a feeling for how such raw images are corrected, and maybe even develop new more efficient correction and processing algorithms for their software). Don't make the SDKs proprietary, and don't encrypt the data stream from the core or camera. Keep it as open as possible. Include a viewer program in the SDK for testing the cores and cameras, but don't restrict it to purchasers of the SDK. Also post a copy of the viewer software on the publicly accessible part of the company's website.

Yes, there are international distribution issues that require special export licenses, but there's a simple solution for that. Don't sell to international customers. Sell only to US customers, and include a disclaimer on the website that it is illegal for any purchaser to resell it to anybody outside of the US. If any information on the website itself is something that is protected information that can't be legally shared with anybody outside the US, then keep that info on a special section of the website, where the the company website's server software is configured to region-lock those pages, using IP address to verify the location of the person attempting to browse to those pages. Simply return a 404 error for anybody outside the US that attempts to access those pages, so that people outside the US won't even know those pages exist. Also make sure that there's a big warning text at the top of each page in that section of the website, that it's a violation of federal law to share this info with people outside of the US, so that they know it would be illegal to copy any info from those pages and paste it onto an internationally accessible forum or social media website.

Doing this, so there's ONLY ONE version of the product (instead of 2, one for international and one for the US), means that the operation can be much cheaper. It's much cheaper to just make one product line, and that savings to the company can be passed on to the consumer by lower prices. Also, since my suggestion is to make the US version the one and only product line (not the international version as most companies do, limiting them to only making 9Hz thermal cameras), that means the company I'm suggesting could make 30Hz and 60Hz frame rate cameras as its only product line. Yes, you will miss out on international customers, but you will also attract more US customers (like myself) who absolutely HATE to be stuck with only low frame rate thermal cameras.

If anybody wants to start such a company, with a US-only consumer/hobbyist thermal imager camera or core as its primary product, then I would gladly work for that company.

[Vipitis]

There are already options. Like you can buy a Lepton with a breakout board and get rather low level data. Also if you haven't missed it there is an effort to produce a higher level open thermal camera platform, the thread about it is quite prominent in this subforum.

Also I doubt the market is large enough

[Ben321]

Lepton is 9Hz limited. I guess you didn't read my whole post. You missed the part about me wanting the thermal camera to be a 30Hz model, and then to avoid export restrictions, simply NOT selling it to international customers. Make it a product sold strictly in the US.

You say the market isn't big enough. I say you just aren't looking at where the real potential buyers are. The potential buyers are gamers, that play war games, mostly young people between the ages 15 and 30. Why? Because most war games have at least one weapon equipped with a thermal gun-sight. And I know when I played my first game with a thermal scope on the gun, I was like "So cool! I wish I had that kinda tech that could see heat!". THAT RIGHT THERE is your market. These would be people who would easily pay $500 for a DECENT (not crappy 9Hz limited) thermal camera. I think if we can get enough people in this market to buy the product, it could be a HUGE HIT, and thus a HUGE MONEY MAKER for whatever company decided to go with the plan to manufacture such a camera aimed at that market.

The biggest hurdle would be the actual advertising. You have to know how to make a decent ad to promote the product, and get it to air as widely as possible. First ad banners on the internet and YT videos, and once the company has enough money from sales, start with TV advertising. Pay TV stations to run your ad on commercial breaks on TV. Make the ads appeal to young people, particularly gamers. Show gameplay footage from various games involving thermal scopes on the weapons in the games, and transition to showing actual video footage from the thermal image camera you are selling.

[tmbinc]

If you look of the countries of residence of the people in this forum, you should quickly figure out why a "let's make it just for my country"-attitude is not going to be helpful in getting too many interesting answers to your question. But - to use your words - there's a simple solution for us: ignore your idea.

On the more serious side, I think you severely underestimate the market dynamics around VOx sensors. You can't just go to FLIR and expect them to sell you these sensors for less than what you pay, for example, for a new Autoliv NV3 (which is probably the cheapest way to get that a FLIR ISC0901 sensor), if you can somehow magically convince them to sell them to you at all.

And once you buy NV3s and rip them apart (which, again, will be much cheaper than buying the individual parts), you're basically at step -1 of OpenIRV; except OpenIRV is actually proven from a technical perspective.

So - the best bet is probably for you to start a company that works out a deal to manufacture OpenIRV boards and does the proper marketing for it. I'm sure everyone here would love these boards to be widely available at a low price.

[Vipitis]

you probably have zero experience in designing a product and bringing it to market, let alone running a company.

The Lepton exists in 30hz, for the micro copter and an older TPL product.

If you want a small, cheap and high refresh rate core - there is options even from Seek.


You will not sell a gadget for $500+ to "young gamers" that provides them with zero value.

[Fraser]

It is worth pointing out that SEEK Thermal is a company that intended to create a thermal imaging camera that was affordable for the masses…. A sort of VW Beetle of thermal imaging devices…..”The people’s thermal camera”  The people who set up Seek Thermal were all very experienced in the field thanks to then being part of Amber-Raytheon, Indigo and then FLIR. With that massive experience base they had a good chance of succeeding in their quest and I expected great things from them. Move forwards a few years and look at the products that Seek Thermal have produced. The first generation dongle camera was sadly a bit of a disaster on the image noise front, but later generations of microbolometer have improved. Seek Thermal elected to have their own microbolometer design produced by a fabrication plant rather than buying a 3rd party sensor array. This was in an effort to keep costs down and control development of the sensor array in-house for future improvements. Even with Seek Thermals laudable intention to produce affordable thermal imaging cores and cameras with excellent performance, they have hit some ‘bumps in the road’ and they still battle with the image noise present in their camera systems. Remember, this company contains experts in thermal imaging technology design and marketing, yet they are still not able to provide a thermal imaging camera that competes with more expensive FLIR designs like the Ex and Exx series within the lower budget area of the market. There are real limits on what can be achieved within a limited budget. For information, a ULIS QVGA A-Si microbolometer and the required Chalcogenide lens to illuminate it will cost you around £600 (~$720) A FLIR microbolometer will cost a similar or higher amount and FLIR are not known for supplying their microbolometers to just anyone who asks for them ! FLIR make thermal cameras and cores whilst ULIS-SOFRADIR-Lynred make microbolometers and cores….there is a very different marketing strategy at work within these two companies.

As has been demonstrated with the OPENIRV project on this forum, designing and producing a viable thermal imaging camera from just the microbolometer and lens assembly is a very involved process and the sort of people with the skills to do this work normally expect to be paid significant sums of money for their efforts. This makes the OPENIRV project all the more amazing as it is an OPEN Source project !

Finally, any company that was thinking of designing and manufacturing a thermal imaging camera will be looking closely at the new products coming out of China. Infiray IRAY microbolometers have developed quickly during the pandemic and the cores are produced with a high frame rate. China is a master of mass production and cost reduction. We will see the availability of good quality thermal imaging cores increase and their cost decrease over the coming years. Just look at what is available today and it’s price…the Infiray IRAY S0 core outperforms the SEEK Thermal MOSAIC at a similar price point and it is a 25fps core. Companies wishing to make affordable thermal imaging products will likely look to Asia for their cores in the future. Sadly those cores are closed designs so no good for your OPEN design but they are what you would be competing against in the market and I predict your product would lose that battle. If you even got to the point of a viable open source thermal camera or core, China manufacturers would examine it, improve upon it and create their own version at lower cost, as they have done with other products. This is why OPEN Source is not a great idea for a company that intends to make profit from their design.

‘Interesting’ idea Ben321, likely very unpopular in its “USA only” attitude when China is producing high frame rate cores and sadly “Pie in the Sky” in the current market.

[Ben321]

It is worth pointing out that SEEK Thermal is a company that intended to create a thermal imaging camera that was affordable for the masses…. A sort of VW Beetle of thermal imaging devices…..”The people’s thermal camera”  The people who set up Seek Thermal were all very experienced in the field thanks to then being part of Amber-Raytheon, Indigo and then FLIR. With that massive experience base they had a good chance of succeeding in their quest and I expected great things from them. Move forwards a few years and look at the products that Seek Thermal have produced. The first generation dongle camera was sadly a bit of a disaster on the image noise front, but later generations of microbolometer have improved. Seek Thermal elected to have their own microbolometer design produced by a fabrication plant rather than buying a 3rd party sensor array. This was in an effort to keep costs down and control development of the sensor array in-house for future improvements. Even with Seek Thermals laudable intention to produce affordable thermal imaging cores and cameras with excellent performance, they have hit some ‘bumps in the road’ and they still battle with the image noise present in their camera systems. Remember, this company contains experts in thermal imaging technology design and marketing, yet they are still not able to provide a thermal imaging camera that competes with more expensive FLIR designs like the Ex and Exx series within the lower budget area of the market. There are real limits on what can be achieved within a limited budget. For information, a ULIS QVGA A-Si microbolometer and the required Chalcogenide lens to illuminate it will cost you around £600 (~$720) A FLIR microbolometer will cost a similar or higher amount and FLIR are not known for supplying their microbolometers to just anyone who asks for them ! FLIR make thermal cameras and cores whilst ULIS-SOFRADIR-Lynred make microbolometers and cores….there is a very different marketing strategy at work within these two companies.

As has been demonstrated with the OPENIRV project on this forum, designing and producing a viable thermal imaging camera from just the microbolometer and lens assembly is a very involved process and the sort of people with the skills to do this work normally expect to be paid significant sums of money for their efforts. This makes the OPENIRV project all the more amazing as it is an OPEN Source project !

Finally, any company that was thinking of designing and manufacturing a thermal imaging camera will be looking closely at the new products coming out of China. Infiray IRAY microbolometers have developed quickly during the pandemic and the cores are produced with a high frame rate. China is a master of mass production and cost reduction. We will see the availability of good quality thermal imaging cores increase and their cost decrease over the coming years. Just look at what is available today and it’s price…the Infiray IRAY S0 core outperforms the SEEK Thermal MOSAIC at a similar price point and it is a 25fps core. Companies wishing to make affordable thermal imaging products will likely look to Asia for their cores in the future. Sadly those cores are closed designs so no good for your OPEN design but they are what you would be competing against in the market and I predict your product would lose that battle. If you even got to the point of a viable open source thermal camera or core, China manufacturers would examine it, improve upon it and create their own version at lower cost, as they have done with other products. This is why OPEN Source is not a great idea for a company that intends to make profit from their design.

‘Interesting’ idea Ben321, likely very unpopular in its “USA only” attitude when China is producing high frame rate cores and sadly “Pie in the Sky” in the current market.

Interesting points.

FLIR does have a page for microbolometers to sell but I assume they only sell in bulk to camera manufacturers, so I assumed maybe they could sell a large quantity of these to me (or to the company I was proposing making) for a low price (buying in bulk makes a low unit price) and then make a bunch of thermal cameras from these cores, of course having thermal camera experts here working for me to do the actual design and assembly of the cameras. Like literally, I was thinking about starting a company with some of you guys here, in order to pull this off.

And yes you mention ULIS. I was thinking about them too. I wonder if buying microbolometers in bulk from them would be cheaper than buying microbolometers in bulk from FLIR? I have had trouble contacting them though. In the past I contacted them to ask about the prices of their microbolometers and their cores, and never got a response. I think they only will respond if I'm contacting them on behalf of a company, not if I'm contacting them as an individual wanting their equipment for personal use. That's another reason that I suggested we form a company to do this. Other companies who have the parts I would need to make the product I'm thinking of, would be more likely to reply if I contacted them as part of a company, rather than as an individual.

China's thermal cameras have similar resolutions and prices compared to Seek's, but they have much lower noise in the image. How did they pull that off though? As you mentioned, Seek has employees from other major thermal camera manufacturers like FLIR, so they brought know-how to the Seek company. How could a Chinese company outperform that?

Also, since China uses 50Hz electricity, those Chinese cores only offer 25Hz or 50Hz frame rates, which is pretty much a no-go for me. I would want something that could generate a video for direct playback on US TVs and computer monitors at their native frame rate for the best viewing experience. I wish the Chinese thermal imager companies would manufacture 30Hz or 60Hz versions for sales to countries that have 60Hz electrical systems like the US, instead of making everything according to their own country's electrical frequency.

[Vipitis]

Even as an engineering business with some relevant products and reputation. ULIS won't reply. you have to be a lot larger, like government, military branch or even space flight.

I don't want to discourage your dreams, but I strongly want to bring you back to reality. Without some large amount of money you won't even be able to talk to an engineer.

[Ben321]

Even as an engineering business with some relevant products and reputation. ULIS won't reply. you have to be a lot larger, like government, military branch or even space flight.

I don't want to discourage your dreams, but I strongly want to bring you back to reality. Without some large amount of money you won't even be able to talk to an engineer.

If nothing else, I would simply like to buy one of their cores, but I guess that's out of the question.

Also it looks like the company is called Lynred now.

[Bill W]

If nothing else, I would simply like to buy one of their cores, but I guess that's out of the question.

Also it looks like the company is called Lynred now.

so buy one..........
https://www.avsupply.com/ITM/33930/atom-640.html

[bostwickenator]

Here is a better suggestion. Start a company outside the US. Manufacture the sensors and sell them wherever the hell you want without any restrictions. Oh wait, that's what all the Chinese vendors are doing.

[hagster]

Talking of Chinese vendors. I hear these are very good.

https://www.infiray.com/Micro3thermalmodule.html

[SilverSolder]

Sooner or later, the American restrictions will be rescinded...   but probably only when it becomes patently obvious that those restrictions are pointless and only hurting American business interests.

[Bill W]

Sooner or later, the American restrictions will be rescinded...   but probably only when it becomes patently obvious that those restrictions are pointless and only hurting American business interests.

It is an internal struggle between the various arms of the US government.  While Commerce 'own' the EAR rules under which dual use devices are exported Defense [sic] remain opposed to all generic exports.  Only Commerce are subject to commercial realism.
That was the case when the current rules (Wassenaar and the US derivative EAR) were rewritten in 2007 to include 'silicon' and exclude '9Hz or less' from control.

That said the pure Wassenaar rules are not that onerous to follow from my UK perspective where several open licenses are readily available.  Not sure I would want to sell to many places where a single license is needed.

[Bill W]

Here is a better suggestion. Start a company outside the US. Manufacture the sensors and sell them wherever the hell you want without any restrictions. Oh wait, that's what all the Chinese vendors are doing.

Do not forget that Teledyne (now owning FLIR) and ULIS both have sensor manufacturing outside of the US, and most non-US camera manufacturers will be using their sensors for that reason.  However Canada and France are both in Wassenaar and therefore have dual use rules in place for those sensors to which that applies and military rules for the higher performance ones.

It would seem that FLIR (US parts) have a very friendly relationship with DoC and have a fairly loose export regime for the sensors into the E and K series cameras made in Sweden / Estonia so that cameras can be freely sold at 30Hz within 'friendly western' nations that are also Wassenaar signatories.