New FLIR LEPTON® FS

[bordins]

Hi,

I wonder the new FLIR LEPTON® FS is compatible with the tCam-Mini.

[EDITED ... SOLVED] Another question is that what are differences between radiometric and non-radiometric cameras, in terms of data output from the camera module. It seems the LEPTON FS' radiometric data is not as accurate as previous models, making it more affordable.

All the best,

[danjulio]

Yes, the FS is compatible. It is a Lepton 3.5 with some issues that reduce the accuracy as you note.

Radiometric cameras output data that is the actual temperature (in °K) for each pixel while non-radiometric cameras output a count (representing the energy seen by each pixel). Both can easily be converted into an image but temperature data (such as the spot meter and radiometric markers in my desktop application) can be obtained from a radiometric camera. For a non-radiometric camera it would take additional calibration data per camera and probably monitoring external environmental conditions to be able to output temperature data.

My goal in creating the tCam-Mini was to make it possible for people to make use of the radiometric data in their own applications - something that's harder to do with traditional thermal imagers. That's why all the output files, etc. contain the raw radiometric data. Of course images are super useful too so the applications can create images with markers and export traditional image files.

[bordins]

Thank you very much for your kind explaination.

The FS is very attractive from the pricing perspective. Is there any tutorial how to do such calibration and setup for a non-radiometric camera ? This would be very helpful.

I found an article on calibration.

Having read the article, it seems for a non-radiometric camera require a known or reference temperature point to be placed next to the monitoring area every time.

My application doesn't need an accurate measurement, i.e. a range reading is acceptable.

Best,

BTW, I came across this interesting article.

Challenges and Best Practices for Deriving Temperature Data from an Uncalibrated UAV Thermal Infrared Camera (2019)

[danjulio]

Thank you. I have one FS that I tested with. Since it is a Lepton 3.5 my software processes the data as radiometric data. It was interesting that my unit seems to be fairly accurate. But I don't know if is capable of temperature compensation or if other units have other issues. I think you could certainly try one and try something like a two-point calibration. Using the python driver you could write your own download and analysis/display software.