Thread: Thermal image camera attachment for phone

Originally Posted by cafe latte

I dont think they will help you find stuff in walls. I am just becoming a member of the Fire Brigade and I have been going to the training for a few weeks now and I had a play with the seriously expensive thermal imaging camera they have. In an open area they are great, but even standing behind a thin plastic curtain the person becomes invisible, also if a person stands behind a stud wall there are also invisible as well which surprised me.
Chris

That's strange Chris because I have found kittens in walls using a tic.

and if you go and look at the demo on flir site they claim you can see insects in the roof and behind walls.

I would imagine there has to be a big difference in temp in order to be able to spot stuff. A 36/37 degree kitten is probably easier to spot in a cool wall cavity then a person walking behind a plastic sheet where the body temp might only be a 10/15 degree difference with the ambient temperature.

That's the only explanation I can come up with all I know is despite what you say we call fire rescue out a lot and use them when we are struggling to locate. They don't work in every situation but we have used them and they have worked

Originally Posted by dullbird

That's strange Chris because I have found kittens in walls using a tic.

and if you go and look at the demo on flir site they claim you can see insects in the roof and behind walls.

I would imagine there has to be a big difference in temp in order to be able to spot stuff. A 36/37 degree kitten is probably easier to spot in a cool wall cavity then a person walking behind a plastic sheet where the body temp might only be a 10/15 degree difference with the ambient temperature.

That's the only explanation I can come up with all I know is despite what you say we call fire rescue out a lot and use them when we are struggling to locate. They don't work in every situation but we have used them and they have worked

Thermal imaging camaras work by picking up infrared radiation that is emitted or reflected by all objects. Thermal radiation can easily pass through most gases but passing through solids and liquids is either difficult or blocked. So the radiation can either be emitted, absorbed or reflected. Put a thermal camera in certain situations and you can get false temperature readings due to reflected heat (stand in front of a dull aluminum sheet and point the camera at it - you'll get a reflection of your own emitted body heat). Point a thermo camera at a liquid and you'll only see the surface temp, not the actual temp of the liquid (narrow the span down enough and you can see the convention currents in a cup of coffee)

End of the day the kitten or insects behind the wall would actually have to be close enough to it to affect the temp of the wall before you could pick up the increased temp. Good quality thermal cameras (most likely any dedicated thermal camera nowadays) would be able to pick up temp differences of less than 1 Deg, the trick is setting it up right So it helps when you know what your looking for

The only way I could see the camera working for the kitten as has just has been said is the body of the kitten has been pressed against the wall warming the wall up. Re the insect on the other side of the wall, well I am not saying it is not possible with any thermal imaging camera, but no way with the 25 grands worth I have used. If it cant see my friend behind a roller door, or behind a plastic curtain or behind a thin stud wall no way can it see a fly on the other side of the wall. These are very cool and amazing what they can do but quite surprising what they can do too.
Chris

That's exactly right what written above

When we find things that are trapped it is because hey have been there for sometime so yes it picks up the heat

I'm not saying the cameras look through walls or anything.nand when I say through walls I'm being very general I'm talking single brick with plaster board type walls not double brick

And when I say we found them I'm not saying we swung a tic around and found a perfect outline of a kitten we found its heat patch of where it wa trapped and there for we located it.

Like I said hasn't worked in al scenarios but it has worked and you can't really argue with that fact

Originally Posted by dullbird

That's exactly right what written above

When we find things that are trapped it is because hey have been there for sometime so yes it picks up the heat

I'm not saying the cameras look through walls or anything.nand when I say through walls I'm being very general I'm talking single brick with plaster board type walls not double brick

And when I say we found them I'm not saying we swung a tic around and found a perfect outline of a kitten we found its heat patch of where it wa trapped and there for we located it.

Like I said hasn't worked in al scenarios but it has worked and you can't really argue with that fact

Yes I meant plaster board too. The kitten there for some time and warming up the wall is very interesting, I will mention it in training next week. It would be interesting to get someone to lean against the wall for a bit while we do the slides (yawn!!!) and then later see if we can see him with the tic from the other side in the fun bit of the weeks training . It might not work though as the wall will be double layer with a cavity unlike with the kitten which will directly tough the wall. If it does work it will be useful to remember as you would be able to see a person slumped behind a door in a house search.
Chris

Originally Posted by cafe latte

The only way I could see the camera working for the kitten as has just has been said is the body of the kitten has been pressed against the wall warming the wall up. Re the insect on the other side of the wall, well I am not saying it is not possible with any thermal imaging camera, but no way with the 25 grands worth I have used. If it cant see my friend behind a roller door, or behind a plastic curtain or behind a thin stud wall no way can it see a fly on the other side of the wall. These are very cool and amazing what they can do but quite surprising what they can do too.
Chris

A bee hive you could most likely pick up as the hive itself is hot. Don't ask me how hot - I have no idea what temp they run but I did have a bee hive removed from my kids cubby last year and the bloke picked up where the hive was with his hand feeling the heat on the wall - so a thermal camera would defiantly pick this up


Oh and by the way if your using a camera that's currently worth around 25K then you've got some decent equipment. The price has come down drastically on these in recent years. When I first started using them for work the one I used was around 70K when new and at the time a high end Flir camera was around the 50K mark and it was miles ahead of ours in terms of image quality. This is only around 4 years ago too.

Originally Posted by cafe latte

Yes I meant plaster board too. The kitten there for some time and warming up the wall is very interesting, I will mention it in training next week. It would be interesting to get someone to lean against the wall for a bit while we do the slides (yawn!!!) and then later see if we can see him with the tic from the other side in the fun bit of the weeks training . It might not work though as the wall will be double layer with a cavity unlike with the kitten which will directly tough the wall. If it does work it will be useful to remember as you would be able to see a person slumped behind a door in a house search.
Chris

Yeah I don't know whether you would get the same with a person slumped behind the door because it's not like a cavity where the heat is more concentrated.

If you were in a room you still have a whole lot of area with ambient temperature around.

I don't know whether you would get feed back through brick. For us we sighted the heat spot from the inside (plasterboard side)

Once everyone started touching the wall it was difficult too because you leave residue heat on the surface and the tic started picking that up too.

Pretty awesome bit of kit.

I had a rescue the other day and we used a Tic funnily enough that was brick and plasterboard but we never picked up on this kitten at all however this one was tiny and had been stuck for less than 24hrs so I don't know if that was some factors

Originally Posted by dullbird

Yeah I don't know whether you would get the same with a person slumped behind the door because it's not like a cavity where the heat is more concentrated.

If you were in a room you still have a whole lot of area with ambient temperature around.

I don't know whether you would get feed back through brick. For us we sighted the heat spot from the inside (plasterboard side)

Once everyone started touching the wall it was difficult too because you leave residue heat on the surface and the tic started picking that up too.

Pretty awesome bit of kit.

I had a rescue the other day and we used a Tic funnily enough that was brick and plasterboard but we never picked up on this kitten at all however this one was tiny and had been stuck for less than 24hrs so I don't know if that was some factors

I will see if the guys are up for a play, if so I will let you know how we go
Chris