Seek Shot Series

[matohak]

Seek Shot Series from seek thermal coming up soon. What do you guys think of it?

https://www.thermal.com/seekshot-series.html

Seems like a reasonable priced compact camera that would beat the FLIRs at every aspect. Can do video as well.

For some reason I thought MSX was patented but now Seek has this thing called "SeekFusion" - have they found a patent workaround? When is FLIR's MSX patent going to expire?

[Vipitis]

A competitor to the C2 and C3; new formfactor for seek and no longer a reveal. Issue with their sensors will possibly remain tho...

And it'd just superimposing and blending, MSX is running Edge detection algorithms on the visual image.

[Fraser]

A useful comment can only really be made once some genuine live images have been captured using the units. Historically SEEK imaging arrays have produced a pretty noisy image and their poor thermal stability necessitated a very short period between FFC events. That said, SEEK may be improving their thermal engine with each new equipment release. Let us hope so.

FLIR own a Patent in "MSX". This is an edge identification and overlay system. It is not the very common thermal fusion seen on the SEEK product. Thermal fusion just resizes and overlays the thermal sensor ene image over the visible light image. The level of fusion effect is usually adjustable so as not to obscure the visible light scene detail. Image fusion is effectively a form of video mixing, whereas MSX does edge capture and processing to accurately lay only the scenes edge (higher contrast) detail onto the thermal scene image. A subtle but significant difference 

Fraser

[Fraser]

Vipitis..... you beat me to it and used less words to say the same thing too 

Fraser

[Fraser]

I am also aware of the SEEK thermal engine finding its way into a third party thermal camera solution.

Could it be that SEEK is entering a new era of producing thermal imaging engines for other companies products as has been previously seen with Raytheon, FLIR/Indigo and BAE ?

With a serious drive to enter the imaging core/engine market SEEK may have the incentive to move from what could be called 'toys' to higher performance imaging solutions ? The competition would be welcome in the marketplace. It all comes down to whether SEEK have an adequately developed microbolometer and image processing package. Without that, they will remain a manufacturer of a mediocre imaging solution not best suited to demanding applications such as Fire fighting, law enforcement, cars or aviation.

It should not be forgotten that the owners of SEEK and some of their team come from FLIR and Indigo. One owner of SEEK was the owner of AMBER who built cooled thermal cameras. AMBER was bought by Raytheon. There is no lack of knowledge at SEEK Thermal regarding what makes a decent thermal camera.

Fraser

[Fraser]

I just checked.

It was Bill Parish who founded AMBER and went on to found Indigo and then co-found SEEK Thermal.......

Bio is here:

Bill Parrish, Co-Founder & CTO, Seek Thermal,Inc. Bill Parrish received his engineering education at UCSB graduating BSEE ’73, MSEE ’74, and PhD EE ’76 emphasizing integrated circuit design and fabrication. Employed by Hughes Aircraft in 1976 through 1980 at the Carlsbad and Santa Barbara Research Centers, he worked developing new infrared detection concepts.  Many of the advances have become standard design practices of today’s infrared industry. In 1981, he founded Amber Engineering which focused on commercializing advanced military infrared technology by applying novel engineering and business practices to dramatically reduce cost thereby revolutionizing the infrared industry.  Bill steered Amber as CEO for its first four years and served as Chairman until the company was acquired by Raytheon in 1992.  Amber was unique in that it was bootstrap financed from profit on revenues through its entire history.

As a founder and original CEO of Indigo Systems, Bill led the company through extraordinary growth, again without external funding during its formative years, from 1996 to 2001.  Indigo Systems became the technology leader in commercial infrared growing from $800,000 revenue in the first year to over $75 million just six years later.  This rapid success resulted in Indigo being recognized as one of Deloitte’s “Fast 50” in 2002 and 2003 and named the South Coast Business and Technology Company of the Year in 2001.  He remained chairman of Indigo’s Board until the company merged with FLIR Systems in January of 2004.

Bill founded Tyrian Systems (now Seek Thermal) in 2012 to develop, manufacture and market dramatically lower cost infrared camera cores for consumer, commercial and industrial uses.  The order-of-magnitude cost reductions are expected to fuel many new applications for thermal imaging and measurement.  Seek introduced its first products in the fall of 2014.

Bill is an acknowledged expert in infrared technology with numerous papers and patents and has received multiple technology and leadership awards including MSS Fellow, The Levinstein Award for Infrared Technology Leadership and Management, South Coast Business and Technology Entrepreneur of the Year in 2002, and UCSB’s  Narayanamurti Entrepreneurial Leadership Co-Award (The Venky) in 2004.


SEEK Thermal page on Bill......

https://www.thermal.com/william-j-parrish.html

A clever chap 

Fraser

[IwuzBornanerd]

Hey they stole my idea! 

My Pi Zero "tablet" runs about 4 hours, and has the same size screen but is only 6.5" x 3" x .75".  It weighs a bit more at 8oz. even, though. 

The "app" will be the big thing with it.  Judging by their spec. sheet it will produce images the same grade as the current "compact" units only non-focused.  The current units yield pretty clean images at 100mK resolution with my software.  I don't know how that compares with their app but I don't think they do the bias correction.  They should be able to do it better than I if they choose to do it. 

[Vipitis]

Losing focus control and lens options would be a setback from the compact to the shot.... But that guy seems like a genius, he made giant milestones and progress for infrared imaging - twice with his past two companies in just a few years, if seek continues and brings a next generation of sensors and software soon, the competition needs to step up.

I also wonder if i3 will make a standalone TermalExpert one day, as Opgal has a handheld scope ThermApp that compared to the FLIR Breach.

This announcement probably is the end for the seek reveal series.

And seek has already built cameras for someone else. Leupold offers a rebranded Reveal for 100$ more and a tiny scope for about 1k$ that also has a seek sensor.

Maybe competition also comes from China, as we have seen a PDA sized imager in the thread earlier today.

[Ultrapurple]

Thanks for spotting this interesting new development. It is beginning to look as though my 'want' of a thermal camera comparable to a visible light point & shoot is one step closer.

One interesting thing will be to see whether the two versions do indeed use different sensors or they're amenable to hacking...

The other thing that grabs me is the price-per-pixel. For a reasonable period of time it has seemed to me that uncooled LWIR packaged sensors (with or without basic lens) has been pegged around the US 1c per pixel rate. That still holds true from the budget 32 x 32 (1024 pixel) imaging thermometers at US $100 (ish) through to the 640 x 480 (30,000 pixel) ThermalExpert TE-V1 at roughly US $3000 (and the 640 x 480 Therm-App Pro at about $3500). (Yes, I know that the 384 x 288 (110,000 pixel) TE-Q1, at somewhere in the $800-$900 range, bucks this trend).

The 320 x 240 resolution (77,000 pixel) Seek Shot Pro at US $700 brings this down a little - even if only by 10% - but also includes a screen, battery and so on, which don't come free.

Friends, I think we stand on the brink of a new era.

[Vipitis]

If we would out in the work and gather all possible data and keep and spreadsheet up to date, we could mass calculate price/resolution and find cameras that standout.

[matohak]

Woohoo! seems to be out now! Anyone want to do a review here!!??

[PA2001]

Picked up the Pro model a few days ago.  Here are a few shots.

[PA2001]

A few more...

[Dave Pixel]

Hey guys,
This is my first post on EEVblog!
I'm a retailer of SEEK THERMAL cameras, so if you feel that my comments on Seek products are not really objective...then you know why now

We have here both cameras Shot and ShotPRO. IFOV is almost the same for Shot and ShotPRO that's why the image quality is not so different between the two models. But of course with the PRO version you have a wide FOV of 57° which is very comfortable in many applications.

The fusion works great on both cameras. It is closer to the Fluke fusion rather than Flir's MSX.

Here are few pictures made by Shot.

Dave

[PA2001]

Here are a couple more shots. 

I have limited experience with thermal cameras and am looking for some feedback and opinions on the images this camera takes, good and bad.  Let me know what you think.  The images do not look very clear for 320x240 and seem noisy.



Thanks

[vekovoh]

Is it possible to disable the visible camera blending/fusion?
Is it possible to hack them to more than 9fps?

[Chanc3]

Is it possible to disable the visible camera blending/fusion?
Is it possible to hack them to more than 9fps?

Yes you can remove blending option or visual.
Not sure about hacking them.

I'm currently testing a Seek Shot Pro, and I must say it's a nice compact form factor, nice screen, but laggy and the image is very noisy.

I tested it today on our Fluke 4810 and 4181 blackbody calibration sources and it was out by 2 degrees at room temp (about 18C inside the lab). It was spot on at 50 degrees and same at 100 (didn't have time to test above).

It doesn't have any decimal points which is annoying, but not essential.

Only 4 fixed emissivity options (WTF?)

Looking forward to software updates to fix the above hopefully.

[Ben321]

The spec for Seek Shot states it uses 9FPS frame rate. Unlike the Seek Compact Pro and Reveal Pro (which have a 15FPS frame), there is no equivalent in the Seek Shot. So as much as I like its form factor, I won't spend 1 dollar on it unless it can get a better frame rate.

[Chanc3]

Well this will kill it for me: https://support.thermal.com/hc/en-us/articles/360002053640-How-do-I-get-captured-images-off-of-the-device-

No way to access the radiometric images outside of the device - what a load of shit!

[Ben321]

Well this will kill it for me: https://support.thermal.com/hc/en-us/articles/360002053640-How-do-I-get-captured-images-off-of-the-device-

No way to access the radiometric images outside of the device - what a load of shit!

Have you ever thought that maybe they do that on purpose? FLIR makes cheaper cameras have non radiometric only. It's part of a business model. FLIR doesn't want to detract from more expensive cameras with radiometric image output, by selling cheaper units with the same features.

Seek maybe using this business model. Though they don't have more expensive truly professional devices for sale yet, they may have plans for making such a device. As such, their initial cheaper models have intentionally restricted features.

[Hyper_Spectral]

I don't see them offering any cameras with radiometric options, though?

[Ben321]

Seek Compact was 9hz only. Seek Compact Pro is 15hz.
Seek Shot is 9hz only. So is Seek Shot Pro 15hz? Nope. It's still only 9hz. What makes it pro is apparently some other specs are better.
I contacted them about this, and asked if they will make a high frame rate version of it at some point. I'm waiting to hear their reply. If they reply, I'll post an update here.

[sporadic]

Anyone know how the Seek Shot (non-pro) compares to the cheaper HT-18 / HT-A1 cameras?  My main usage would be analysis of prototype boards (nothing crazy small, mostly looking at the power supply section) and the typical check things around your house (windows, outlets, etc..). I'm willing to spring the extra $100 for a Seek Shot if it's worth it. Looks like a slick camera but haven't run across any rave reviews about it yet.

[Vipitis]

as far as we know, it is the same sensor. the only difference will be firmware as well as ergonomics. I don't think the Seek is ruinning some magic image enhancement that would make a drastic difference in your application.

[Mechatrommer]

Anyone know how the Seek Shot (non-pro) compares to the cheaper HT-18 / HT-A1 cameras?  My main usage would be analysis of prototype boards (nothing crazy small, mostly looking at the power supply section) and the typical check things around your house (windows, outlets, etc..). I'm willing to spring the extra $100 for a Seek Shot if it's worth it. Looks like a slick camera but haven't run across any rave reviews about it yet.

i know this maybe is unacceptable to other pro's and offtopic, but i post it anyway. why dont go for thermal compact? it can be mounted on larger lcd (handphone) and half the price, if all you want is like what i want (analysing circuit) and recently helped me with my clogged plumbing and earlier with my burnt ELCB. 3.5" lcd may put strain to my deteriorating eye but if you think you'll need that nice fusion image, i think it worth it at $200+ additional cost. but i still dont like the 3.5" lcd, too small imho. HT-18 is smaller 3.2", without fusion image on compact i have to do manually with different camera (attached) not really nicely overlapped but i can work around it and should be good enough for me for rough guestimation work. ymmv.