- Author
- Amon, F. K. | Lock, A. | Bryner, N. P. | Yoon, H. | Gibson, C. | Rice, J.
- Title
- Evaluation of Thermal Imaging Cameras.
- Coporate
- National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD
- Report
- Report of Test FR 4023; FR 4023, October 2008, 39 p.
- Keywords
- thermal imaging | cameras | evaluation | fire fighters | noise (sound) | temperature differences | thermal sensitivity | temperature range
- Identifiers
- summary results from the NETD tests; summary results from the MDTD tests; Relative Spectral Responsivity (RSR); order of the wavelengths used for RSR measurements; ROI coordinates used for RSR analysis; horizontal and vertical FOV results; nonuniformity (NU) values for a range of set point temperatures; spatial resolution test results
- Abstract
- Four thermal infrared cameras that were provided by the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) to NIST were each evaluated by the NIST Optical Technology Division (OTD) for three metrics: Noise-equivalent Temperature Difference (NETD), Minimum Detectable Temperature Difference (MDTD), and Relative Spectral Responsivity (RSR). All of the measurements performed by the NIST OTD relied on the ability of the camera and its accompanying software to record and transfer the images to an image file having a standard format such as JPEG or TIFF. The NIST OTD then used its own custom software on an analysis PC, written in the LabVIEW * programming environment enhanced with the LabVIEW IMAQ Vision plug-in module, to read the image files and perform the additional processing necessary to compute the metrics. These four cameras were also evaluated by the NIST Fire Research Division using performance metrics and testing protocols which were developed specifically for evaluating thermal imaging cameras utilized by fire fighters. The performance metrics for these tests were Field of View (FOV), Nonuniformity (NU), Spatial Resolution (SR), Effective Temperature Range (ETR), and Thermal Sensitivity (TS). The thermal imagers tested were considered "black boxes". A target was placed in the field of view and the resulting image that appeared on the thermal imager's display was captured by a high resolution visible camera and processed using MATLAB* software.