Poor Man's Thermographic Camera: two Approaches

[thompsonbruv]

Nice work, I wish you all the best.

[josiahjohnston]

Fun project! I'm a PhD student at UC Berkeley and would like to collaborate on construction guides DIY entrepreneurs selling finished products online, enabling small contractors to sell cheap and verifiable weatherization services. Ideally the construction guide would be publicly available, possibly receiving a modest revenue stream by selling kits with instructions like Robert Moog and the theremin. Interested?

[JoernLoviscach]

@josiahjohnston Definitively so. More in my answer to your private message.

[oldyogurt]

You are a genius and this blew my mind. What a creative solution.

[deftdawg]

Hi Jörn,

If you don't mind my asking what model of thermometer did you use? Does it data log or did you tap into (wire JTAG?) its system board to get the readings?

Cheers,

-G

[JoernLoviscach]

@deftdawg That's a cheap IR therometer that comes with an attachable radio transmitter and a radio receiver for USB. It's a German-branded Chinese product. Something of that sort should be available in Canada as well.

[Zalo10]

Approach 1 Improvement: You could use a Mirror to reflect the sampling laser to other areas, thus increasing the rate that it's possible to make samples because a mirror is smaller and more agile than the whole device. Approach 2 Improvement: Instead of having a camera a tracking the whole thing and whatnot, just have the thermometer attached to the camera do the mirror thing and have it reflect the laser toward wherever you click. It may even be able to show real time above your mouse. ;)

[JoernLoviscach]

@Zalo10 Thanks for sharing your ideas! I need to explain that the laser is just used to indicate the spot at which the measurement takes place; the actual measurement is passive. Nonetheless, an IR-reflecting and cooled scanning mirror could indeed be used to speed things up.

[texasaggie85]

actually I just googled you and found your website. Jeez you have many projects! I read the abstract. I am in the midst of my finals so I'll be checking out you website next week when hell week for us is over :)

[texasaggie85]

This is pretty nice, may I ask what you are using for data processing/analyzing the image? Was this in real-time?

[JoernLoviscach]

@texasaggie85 That software is my own. The software to make measurements in the image works in real time. The software to generate a themocam video, however, takes in alle the data collected to form an optimum hypothesis, so it's not interactive. A student of mine is working on a much faster approach; this may have the option to present a preliminary real-time view that is improved in the light of later measurements.

[texasaggie85]

@JoernLoviscach thanks for replying, sounds interesting, do you have a web-site of your project/research? I am a senior in Electrical Engineering Department at Texas A&M University, and looking for something to do over the summer so I just might read up on this..

[JoernLoviscach]

@texasaggie85 Feel free tro peruse j3L7h PERIOD de (no URLs allowed in these comments). Besides the work that is currently being done over here on the cheap thermographic camera, I would also want to improve the camera-based real-time application. I envision a BlueTooth device that contains (multispectral?) IR and distance sensors attached to a standard smartphone. The camera tracking should be improved. There was a nice work at Eurographics last week. And what about different types of sensors?

[crusher8576]

I like the music

[sleepydog4]

Damn nice work. I like how you've adapted affordable tools to increase their functionality. Keep up the good work.

[DACRepair]

thats pretty cool

[JoernLoviscach]

Hi guys, thanks for the laurels! Please have a look at j3l7h (D0T) de (SL4SH) ideas (D0T) html for more of that kind. (No URLs allowed in the comment here, sorry.) I'm looking for international online cooperation on this and many other projects in computer graphics, audio, Web-based stuff, and in electronics.