I have tested the original Seek Thermal J3 PRO core and found its temperature stability to be somewhat poor. There is temperature drift in the cores measurement accuracy for the whole of a 60 minute test that I performed against a known accurate professional Blackbody and constant 21C ambient temperature. This suggested a self heating issue with the J3-320 core. Temperature measurement accuracy was also less than great, but the specification suggests this with a +/-5C stated accuracy.
As a side note, the standard, non PRO, Seek core is known to be less accurate than the PRO version.
Ambient temperature stability of the J3 Pro core is not great. Seek Thermal state that the mosaic core is much improved in this respect.
After considering my findings, my client moved to the new Mosaic cores. From what I have been told, they will be more thermally stable and accurate. I have not tested the mosaic core yet though. I asked what visible differences there were between teh J3-320 PRO and the new Mosaic Pro core. My client advised that they appeared to be the same except that the processing board has been removed from its previous location on the rear of the J3 core and is now 'air gapped' using a length of FPC. This suggests to me that the J3 processor PCB may have been a source of local heat that was effecting the stability of the J3 microbolometer.
Seek Thermal advised that the new Mosaic is superior to the older J3 Pro core.
As the owner of several Seek Reveal cameras, I can say that they provide accurate thermal measurements with a settling time of only 3 minutes. Though I have been advised that the Reveal does not use the whole Mosaic core, there are similarities in the design as the microbolometer PCB is connected to the main PCB using a ribbon cable so local heating is limited to the adjacent LED torch (when used) with no processor board behind the microbolometer PCB to cause issues.
Is the Seek Thermal Mosaic core any good ? Well everyone will have their own opinion on this but mine is that both the Seek Thermal and FLIR Lepton cores are a compromise solution that was built down to a price. they will never deliver crisp low noise images like those that come from more expensive core and camera designs. The Seek Pro core has the advantage of higher resolution than the Lepton, but some of the expected image improvement is lost in the noise content of the image and relatively poor optics used on the core. I am impressed with the Seek Reveal Pro, but less so with the standard Seek Reveal. In my opinion, the PRO is worth the additional cost. In low Delta T scenes, the Seek Thermal cores do still struggle with their internal noise levels but the Lepton also struggles in a similar manner so neither are great in that low Delta T scenario. I can say that the Seek Thermal Pro outperforms the Lepton in many respects though and is well worth investigating. Recommending the standard Seek Thermal Core would not be so easy for me to do. It has noise issues that prove challenging to accept, even at a low 'per unit' cost.
If you buy the evaluation kit for the Seek Pro you will have access to an SDK. Before you get too excited, the SDK takes the form of detailing the command set for the Seek Thermal API so you are not really directly addressing the core functionality. If you have issues with the Seek Thermal API....you are basically stuck. The SEEK Thermal core solution is a hybrid hardware/software approach that is, in some ways similar to SDR in the world of radio. The 'Front end' is the microbolometer with its lens, FFC shutter and a small processor that converts the collected scene data to a proprietary data stream that passes over a USB 2.0 link to a host. The host has the Seek API installed on it and the API provides the programmer with a choice of data at different points in the API's processing path. Even the "RAW" data output is not truly RAW. It comes after NUC, FFC and dead pixel processing. There is a non radiometric RGB data output that has Histogram image processing applied to enhance the contrast in scenes etc, and then there is a Thermographic output with no Histogram based image processing, but with accurate pixel temperature data. The Seek Reveal Pro lets the user switch between the 'Pretty' RGB mode and the less pretty, but accurate Thermography mode. The API dictates what the programmer can do with the imaging core and it can prove limiting. The API is the Software side of the Hybrid solution that is needed to produce a complete camera solution. The only alternative would be to reverse engineer the cores data stream to the host and write a bespoke API. Seek offer no information on that data link or help in making your own API.
Seek are not the most open or helpful of companies to deal with so bear this in mind as well. Before committing to using their cores, you would be wise to buy the development 'kit' and test it thoroughly to ascertain whether it meets your needs. The documentation for the core and the API is not something I was greatly impressed with and you will likely be left with a lot of questions about integrating the core into a system that can produce decent results.
I hope this helps you a little.
Fraser
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