IR - Learning
What is Infrared Thermography and How Does it Work?
Everything around us, including ourselves constantly emits thermal energy to the environment in the form of invisible infrared radiant energy. As an object heats up, it will radiate more and more energy from its surface. We are often able to feel this infrared radiation, but cannot see it with our unaided eyes.
All matter with a temperature  above absolute zero emits thermal energy in the form of infrared radiation, the greater the temperature the greater the radiant energy, and all matter absorbs infrared radiation from the surrounding environment.
Infrared radiant energy is invisible to the naked eye. Infrared Thermography or Thermal Imaging however, is the technique used for making this form of energy visible and measurable.
Thermal imaging cameras employ optics to gather and focus the incoming infrared energy from the scene onto a detector. The detector is sensitive to energy in the infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. The detector converts this incoming energy into a proportionate electrical signal, which is then amplified. The amplified signal is sent to a video processor and then to a visual display such as a liquid crystal display (LCD). The IR/T camera display presents an image or thermographic map normally referred to as a thermogram. Thermograms present objects in varying degrees of brightness on a calibrated grey scale where lighter shades correspond to higher temperatures. Many of today’s cameras have the facility to apply colours from a variety of pallets to suit a particular application or operator preference.
The thermal image can be recorded onto videotape or stored on an onboard digital device such as a hard disk or memory card for later analysis using appropriate computer software.
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