SEEK Reveal Pro FF review by Ultrapurple

[Fraser]

IwuzBornaNerd,

In my defence, those were some pictures I took on the day my Reveal Pro arrived 

Our cats are ever present thermal ‘targets’ and their fur can act as a pretty good detail test 

I can produce some test target images if you really want boring old inanimate targets 

Thank you for analysing the images 

Fraser

[IwuzBornanerd]

Bornanerd,

Ah, you're right, its 4 non-zero values on page 3 -- it's 16-bit integers, not 32-bit integers.
Maybe page 3 is work in progress -- not ready for prime time.

Well, page 3 is fully populated in images from the Android app for the "Compact" dongles, as you can see on the Seek Compact Pro Radiometric JPEGs thread.  Maybe for some reason not on Reveal, but why...

How much of the on-device storage space can you access?  Just the image directories or is there something else you can see?  I'm wondering if it's possible to get at the calibration files like the ones that the Compacts spit out on startup.  An equivalent to the startup frame 9 would be interesting.

[IwuzBornanerd]

IwuzBornaNerd,

In my defence, those were some pictures I took on the day my Reveal Pro arrived 

Our cats are ever present thermal ‘targets’ and their fur can act as a pretty good detail test 

I can produce some test target images if you really want boring old inanimate targets 

Thank you for analysing the images 

Fraser

You're welcome.     Test targets would be most interesting IF we had values in page 3, but I'm not sure they would be all that useful otherwise.  It might be instructive, though, to see what happens as you increase the temperature of a black body up towards 330C.  I would expect, based on the saturation that I have now seen, that some pixels would hit a limit before others and maybe some would get all the way to 330C while others do not.  So if you image a uniform temperature surface at or near 330C, the pixel temperatures would be "all over the map".

[JimM]

How much of the on-device storage space can you access?

Here's what I see:

The DCIM directory has all the images: PNG and TIFF
DEVICE.TXT has a few lines about software version, etc
The other directories have from 10 to 20 files each.

[hinofi]

Results from FLIR SC-660:

(Attachment Link)

Results from Therm-App Pro:

(Attachment Link)


Results from Therm-App:

(Attachment Link)


Results from SEEK Reveal Pro:

(Attachment Link)

Good work, but I think you should compare them at same temperature span, not only same scene.
BTW, Flir's high-end camera still have that 4 C degree minimum span limit? Rediculous.

[IwuzBornanerd]

How much of the on-device storage space can you access?

Here's what I see:

The DCIM directory has all the images: PNG and TIFF
DEVICE.TXT has a few lines about software version, etc
The other directories have from 10 to 20 files each.

Thanks for the listing.  It looks like all operating system stuff to me, but they could certainly put their stuff in with the regular system stuff.  I won't ask you to sift through it all since I can't say exactly what to look for.

[JimM]

So, now that I've had the SeeK Reveal PRO camera in my grubby paws for all of six days, it's time for some comments and criticisms of the unit. Generally overall, I'm happy with the camera and think it's pretty good value for the  money, but constructive criticisms are always in order. Listed below are comments -- some are nits, while others are more substantive.

• Documentation: As Fraser mentioned previously, there's a dearth of documentation or a User manual for this device. There should be a User manual (on-line is fine) that describes all the menus and has all of the specifications including contents of saved files.
• Charger: There's no charger included with the unit. There seems to be a charger included with other Reveal models, but not this one. Granted, I can charge it from an iPhone charger, but how much could a charger add to the BOM ?
• Power Off: Unless I'm missing something, you have to go through a few menus just to turn the unit off. Shouldn't there be one click menu item to turn power off? On the other hand, when you disconnect from the USB port, the unit turns off. Suppose you want to continue using the camera after disconnecting from your computer? You have to power up again. 
• No WiFi: Having Wifi would be a great convenience in transferring files to a computer. For one thing, I wonder how many flexes of that little rubber booty that covers the USB connector can have before it falls off and goes to booty heaven. Having to use the USB port for charging only would decrease the amount of flexes on the booty. 
• Deleting files: You can delete images on the unit, but it would be quicker and easier to delete them on your computer. Can you do that? I would think you could, but it doesn't say anywhere that you can.
• Accuracy/Calibration: It would be nice to have better accuracy than +/- 5 deg C. I wonder if a version of the camera could be provided that has better accuracy for a few hundred $ more -- or alternatively provide a calibration service for existing units for a reasonable price.

That's all the comments I have for now. Sure, it would be nice to have video, but the camera already gets noticeably warm after about 1/2 hour of use (not uncomfortably so, but it does get warm), so I can understand why video wasn't included.

[Fraser]

Some comment on your comments 

1. Yes the documentation is sadly lacking for the Reveal Pro. I wish they had provided a URL to a decent manual that reflected the ‘PRO’ status that Seek claim for the Reveal PRO model

2. It is common for USB chargers to not be supplied with equipment these days. Mobile phone manufacturers were the first to do this. The ideology behind the move is that most buyers already have one or more USB chargers and that may be used. The idea is to reduce waste and duplication. Not convenient for those without a suitable USB charger but, as you say, such chargers are common and cheap. HOWEVER from a manufacturers standpoint I would be worried about nasty poorly designed chargers damaging My products charge circuit so would want to provide a decent charger to prevent warranty claims.

3. Power on is a quick press of the central button. Power off is a long press of the central button. The camera then goes into shutdown with a “Please wait” display as it gets its affairs in order (managed shutdown of Linux)

4. The unit has the PCB tracks and pads for Wi-Fi but sadly no model released to date has the parts installed I agree that this omission is a pity.

5. I remember reading “somewhere” in one of the reveal manuals that you can delete files in the Reveal from your PC without issue. I strongly suggest you do not use a format command though as I am unsure of the Reveal Pro flash memory architecture. Formatting a FLIR E4 picture memory has caused issues. The standard Reveal cameras use a removable micro SD Flash card and the camera just acts like a USB card reader in PC Mode so a format would be permissible but pretty pointless anyway. Just select unwanted picture files and delete them using the camera option or via the PC connection.

6. Accuracy is a bit of an issue with small cores like the FLIR LEPTON and Seek Thermal offerings. The manufacturers are being honest about the accuracy for which I congratulate and respect them. These compact cores are built down to a price and compromises were made. I wrote a piece on those compromises that I will see if I can find in my emails. Basically, the requirements for accurate temperature measurement are not met by these tiny cores so accuracy suffers. For many tasks this can be tolerated as a downside of the lower cost and affordable product. The temperature accuracy of the Seek Core has been known to improve after a temperature stabilisation period of up to 5 minutes. I will be testing my Seek Reveal Pro measurement accuracy against professional blackbody sources soon. The manufacturer has chosen to be honest and declare relatively poor accuracy but that does not mean the core exhibits such a wide tolerance after a temperature settling period and in reasonable ambient temperatures. We shall see. We also need to consider the preset emmissivities rather than user set precise emissivity for a target. Such could also influence the accuracy specification provided by Seek.

Fraser

[Fraser]

I just found my comments on the accuracy specifications of the Seek cores. It was actually a post on this forum....

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/thermal-imaging/seek-thermal-core-measurement-accuracy-whats-the-story/

Fraser

[IwuzBornanerd]

I discovered yesterday that it was very simple to grab the palettes off Seek app images for use in my manipulator program so I did that & then applied them to some of the tiff file temperature lists to see how well they matched the color image stored in the first frame/page of the tiff file.  But when I opened the Reveal Pro tiff files with any of the image viewers on my Linux box the colors didn't match ANY of the palettes.  It looks like those images have the Red & Blue swapped.  This is NOT true of any tiff's I have seen off of the Seek app--either those posted by others on this forum or those I have gotten off my cameras with the Seek app.  Do the Reveals use BGR while the app uses RGB??

I present a collage of samples below.  The upper left image is from a tiff uploaded by a forum member & the lower right is part of the image my program got from the temperature list in that tiff file & it is a good match for the upper left one.  The rest of the images are Fraser's & JimM's tiffs displayed by ImageMagick.

When I display the tiff temperatures in my program using the Seek palettes I get very good match with the tiff color images, but not with the Reveal tiffs.

Do the tiff's come out that way for you guys?

[JimM]

Do the tiff's come out that way for you guys?

Yeah, I noticed that. To further your guess that maybe they just mixed up the colors in the tiff file palette, I took a picture of my coffee cup with the "White" grayscale palette (white is hot). In that case  r=g=b for each palette entry. So it wouldn't matter if they mixed up the color order. And yes, with that palette the tiff image and png image are the identical (IMGT0029 files below). When I switched to the "Iron" palette I get IMGT0030 files below. (Better drink that coffee, it seems to be cooling off a lot).

[IwuzBornanerd]

Thanks for the feedback.  Glad it's not just me, but then you are on a Mac & I'm on Linux; I have to wonder if Windows sees it the same way.

If you open the tiff in GIMP & from the Colors menu select Components> Channel Mixer you can set the red channel to 0 red & 100 blue and the blue channel to 0 blue & 100 red and get the same color image as your png:



Which matches well with what I get from the temperature list using the Seek Iron palette:

[JimM]

Just to close the loop on this, I took the first page of the tiff file and swapped the Red and Blue channels in ImageMagick. The resulting image is then identical to the png image. So, yes the tiff image is bgr rather than rgb. For reference, the ImageMagick code is:

Code: [Select]

convert input.tiff -color-matrix '0 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 0' output.tiff

[Fraser]

An interesting development chaps. Well done  A firmware bug maybe ? I wonder if Seek already know about it. It might be worth an email to them ?

[JimM]

I would call it a bug. However, I noticed another thing that I think is also a bug. If you go into Gallery mode on the Reveal and delete an image, if that image has an associated tiff file, you can't go back and delete other files in Gallery, or sometimes the screen just goes black. If you then connect to your computer and look at the image directory, you will see that only the png file was deleted. The tiff file is still there. So, delete the tiff file on your computer, eject the Reveal volume, disconnect from the computer (which turns off the Reveal camera), and then turn the Reveal back on and go into Gallery mode and you will see that Gallery works again. By the way, I think having the camera turn off when you disconnect the USB port should be changed. Why have the camera turn off at that point? So there are several things that could be changed in the software/firmware on the Reveal.

[Fraser]

It is like the Reveal’s Radiometric TIFF function is either an afterthought, or is known to be buggy. I did not find any great mention of the Reveal PRO radiometric TIFF mode in documentation and SEEK have not provided a file viewer for the radiometric TIFF images.

Fraser