Products > Thermal Imaging

Yet another cheap thermal imager incoming.. Seek Thermal

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miguelvp:
Thanks, I'm at work so only had ACDSee to work with it and it's really not that powerful using 16 bit greyscale

blackboxdisease:
I'm not sure if this will help. I couldn't find a way to save it but there is an online disassembler.

http://www2.onlinedisassembler.com/odaweb/owtD0r/0

good luck.

eneuro:

--- Quote from: tomas123 on November 24, 2014, 08:11:45 pm ---in level stretched 8 bit you can show more informations  ;)

--- End quote ---
But one can miss that there is a lot of bluring in this Flir E4 image and 8bit images-no  ;)
Overlayed hotest iron object in the scene with oryginal 16bit gray PNG histogram average and left pixels around  untouched than applied iron LUT.

Of course nothing to compare to Seek while only 2 frames were used without any rows corrections etc.
However, as expected when you download first file RGB version with LUT applied hot_iron_flir_e4.iron_replaced_with_small_noise_around_average.lut.png that this image was blured or another way smooth filtered, so while pixels added by my software later are not blured huge averaging visible-2 to 3 pixels affected at the edges.
This image is created for Flir's MSX  ;)

Anyway not a great scene for looking for gradients in Flir Ex while there is a lot of stuff in background.

NOTE: black image is 16bit gray untouched oryginal Flir PNG posted there by @cynfab before whole iron LUT were applied to its min max values.

Update: When looked again to this oryginal .jpg taken from Flir E4 by @cynfab it looks like Flir made such trick there that... they simply made temperature scale up to 138* and then they land with something similar to my modyfication, while now thermal LUT is able to display much more details at lower temperatures from the scene, but of course this white 138*C temp is not iron temperature but only SATURATED to this value to be able see anything while they had this very hot iron close to 300*C .
Tricky Flir, so probably this mark at the left is notice that there are temperatures higher than >280* in the scene.  >:D
Any other explanation for this trick they made with very similar iron LUT I've implemented in my software as Flir's ones in this thermal image posted by @cynfab ? 

It was very interesting LUT manipulating excercise  8)

tomas123:

--- Quote from: eneuro on November 24, 2014, 09:32:07 pm ---there is a lot of bluring in this Flir E4 image
--- End quote ---

most of blurring comes from the lense
see my images here
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/flir-one-thermal-imaging-camera-teardown-and-hacks/msg551882/#msg551882

--- Quote from: tomas123 on November 16, 2014, 05:15:09 pm ---one square = one sensor pixel of Flir Exx

the result is really sharp (thanks to good optics of the Flir Exx)
Wow

--- End quote ---

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/flir-e4-thermal-imaging-camera-teardown/msg343791/#msg343791

Fraser:
@Eneuro,

It would appear that you are discovering how FLIR make their E4 images look 'nice'. My 1997 FLIR PM570's were the first Microbolometer handheld units that they made. The images contain all the detail needed for professional thermography but are the images 'pretty' ? Nope, they contain noise as FLIR had not conquered that particular challenge. They admitted as much to me when I tested their first camera to arrive in the UK.

Since the PM570 the FLIR microbolometers and image processing techniques have developed. My PM695's offer better performance and so they should at $56000 each ! Do the images still have noise in them....yep you bet they do. If you select a span of 2C you see the noise as I would expect. When increasing the span to 10C or so the noise disappears. Crucially for a thermographer, the professional cameras present the DATA that is needed for radiometric measurements.

Along comes the FLIR E4 at a very appealing price and I expect poor imagery from it. When it arrived and had been upgraded to 320x240 I was very surprised at the clean images that it produced. The noise was heavily suppressed making the image attractive for the casual user. The Ex series have very small lenses and I would have expected quite high image noise which could bother some users. If FLIR were intending to make a camera that produces 'pretty' thermal images, then they have, IMHO, succeeded.

Now as to whether a thermal image should be heavily processed or not very much depends upon the intended purpose of said images. A thermographer needs clean data with which to work and the presence of limited noise in an image is not an impediment to such use. Obviously high noise levels are not acceptable ! Now a photographer or artist has different needs and wants the images to be as 'clean' as possible without losing definition.

OK this is where I comment on the fine work that you guys have been doing with the SEEK. IMHO the SEEK is a ground breaking unit that may make others in the TIC OEM world reconsider sales strategies, then again maybe not. I am impressed with what has been achieved at the price point but I am disappointed with the image in terms of noise content, clarity and thermal gradient. As received the SEEK leaves a great deal to be desired when compared to other thermal cameras of similar resolution such as my NEC F30S, Testo 880-1 or the FLIR E4. There is only so much allowance that can be made for the low cost if the image proves unusable for many tasks. An old saying of "spoiling the ship for a ha'porth of tar" may apply to the SEEK product.

I see much work being done to reduce the noise content of the images. I remain impressed by the expertise that is being demonstrated here. The SEEK certainly could benefit from better image processing. But when is image processing too much processing ? As you point out, the FLIR E4 appears to be heavily processed to obscure its optical block shortcomings. Does it still do its job, well yes it likely does. Is it a perfect solution ? maybe not. Let us not forget that we are working with an uncooled microbolometer and not a cryo-cooled FPA. Microbolometers are inherently noisy beasts and need taming with processing....just the right amount of processing though  :)

If you want to see a really nice thermal image, take a look at a scene with a cryo-cooled thermal camera like the PM550 from circa 1995....... noise, what noise  8)  Sadly I do not own a PM550 at this time but I do have a FLIR SC3000 that is currently on the repair bench. If/when I repair its Stirling cooler controller I hope to get some very nice quality images from its Quantum Well FPA.

I am not a FLIR 'fan-boy', just a long term user of their cameras (and the AGEMA's before them). They have a history of making some of the best thermal cameras that money can buy outside of the military.

Aurora

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