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Hi, my name is David Tu and in this video, we're going to show you how to use a
thermal imaging camera. For our video, we're going to actually be using this one from
Agilent Technologies and we'll just show you the basics of how to read the display and how to play
around with getting different measurements and different colors on your thermal imaging camera.
So, here we have the thermal display view and what I wanted to show off was a few things
that are going to be of interest to you if you're going to be using a thermal camera.
So, in the center there you see a center dot
and whatever that center dot is pointing at, you'll actually be able to measure the temperature.
So, if I point at this hot cup of water, it's looking like it's about 41 degrees Celsius,
then if I point it at this cold cup of water, it's now sitting at about 1, maybe 2 degrees Celsius.
So that center dot's going to be really important for you. Then on the right hand side,
you see the color scale for the different temperatures and for heat and cold
so this a rainbow display right now so at the very hot end you'll see red or white,
even for super-white hot and then at the very cold end, you'll see blue. So as the camera
auto-arranges, I'm going to scroll around to see a few different things.
Here I have my laptop and you can see the red portions are hotter. My laptop seems to be hot in
the middle and I think that's about 30 degrees or so, at the center. If I wanted to I can
actually look at the walls and you can kind of see my reflection on the wall picture and
it actually is reflecting that heat from that glass. If I go up a little bit higher
you can actually see the 2x4 supports in the walls and they actually look like cold spots on
the walls so you can use a thermal camera for finding out where your studs are.
same if I go to the ceiling, you could see that the air conditioning vent right now is a lot
colder than the surrounding ceiling. So that's just one part of the display.
So let's actually do a couple of other things like changing the color modes or changing the view mode
which will have us do maybe a picture to picture or fusion modes. So let's go ahead and do that.
Right now we have a multi-color scheme which shows hot and cold in varying degrees of color,
but we actually just want to see what's hot and cold, it's better to go to a monochromatic
color scheme, so I'm just going to press the center button here and go into my main menu
and press imaging color palette and just select a monochrome color scheme. Let me get back that scheme.
So now if I actually point at my hot and cold cups of water, you can see that hot is very bright yellow,
whereas the cold is more of a darker, black color. So that's something else to help you visualiz your temperatures.
Yet another nice feature is the ability to see your thermal image in different views.
So you can actually press this camera button here and cycle through the different views.
With this thermal imaging camera, you actually have the normal IR lens,
which is this big thing right here and you can actually change your focus by turning this ***
and in addition to that we actually have a normal camera lens, which is this here.
So if I go back and take a look, we can actually see the normal camera view but if I cycle
through and press this camera button again I have this nice picture-in-picture view,
where I'm actually looking at thermal images within a normal picture view.
So if I close this laptop, you can see that the two cups of water are hot and cold.
If I press the thermal --the camera view again, now I've got more of a blend mode, or we call it a
fusion mode and if I focus it correctly, you can actually align it or misalign it and so
now you can actually see what your shooting at versus just a purely thermal view, which
is this next button here. So this is the purely thermal view that we have.
And if you actually turn out to be in a darker location, you might want a flashlight or a torch
light so you can actually turn that on by pressing this little star button here and you can see on
the front there, you can see the torch light is on.
Or if you are pointing at something that's kind of far away or you're in the thermal
view and you don't know what you're looking at, you can actually hold the star button
down and we actually have a little laser pointer that will help you point at what you're shooting
your camera at and help you identify what your target is. In addition to that,
another useful feature for some thermal cameras is the ability to zoom. So for this camera
I'm just going to press this, or I'm going to hold down this camera button again, bringing
up my zoom menu and I'm actually going to zoom in just by pressing this right button.
So if we look down at our cups of water again, we can actually zoom in just on that hot water,
even though I'm not moving my feet. With this camera, you actually have up to a 4x zoom
and that's going to allow you to see a lot more detail, especially if you're in a
home inspection application where some of your stuff is going to be really high up or really
far away, where you can't reach it with a ladder. So this kind of feature is going to be useful for you.
The primary feature of these types of cameras are the ability to take
still images and then do some editing of those images, as well.
So this isn't a video camera, it's more of a still-image camera, so in order to take a picture,
all I have to do is press this trigger button that is nicely put right in front of your index finger,
so all I have to do is press that trigger button and I'm going to point it at those
hot cups of water again. Take a picture and let's look at some editing.
So if I actually want to edit those pictures, I'm just going to press this play button.
Now I've got the image that I just took and I can look at the purely infrared version
or it actually saved a normal camera view so a visual spectral version as well. So that's
going to be really useful to determine what you're actually shooting, not just in the
thermal view. If I wanted to, I can actually go back and add some tags
to the video so I can edit tags and I can put in a note tag and just type in some letters
or whatever I really want to put in there. So that's going to allow you to tag your images,
your thermal images with either a real view or actually some notes so you can go back
and make your reports. So before we end up, let's actually do some kind of fun things with our videos.
So I've got a fun little demonstration here.
So I actually have two little picture frame things that I've made. One's with a black,
plastic trash bag that I just picked up at the normal market and you can see that it's
an opaque bag, you cannot see me through it at all, so in the visual spectrum it's actually
you can't see through it and on this other picture frame I have another piece of plastic
and this one is clear and you can see me pretty well, however these things act very differently
in the thermal spectrum. So let's go ahead and switch over to the thermal spectrum and
see what these picture frames look like, all right? Now we're in the thermal mode of our
thermal camera and you can actually see, I still have my clear sheet here, you can't
see that in the thermal view but if I pass this sheet in front of my face, check out
what happens, you can no longer see me. So maybe that's surprising to you, but let's
go and check out this other, black, plastic bag here. So with the black plastic bag,
you might be able to start seeing my hand already, but if I put it in front of my face, you can tell,
actually it doesn't look like anything is in front of me at all. But in the visual
spectrum it actually is a black plastic bag. So to prove that, let's go ahead and go back
to our visual mode and so here it's that black, plastic bag right in front of me. I didn't swap it out
or anything like that and here's my other plastic frame. So that's a cool demonstration
just to see how different the thermal spectrum is than a visual spectrum. If we go back to
that thermal spectrum, just wanted to point out that if you're ever being chased by a
predator from the movies, you might want to use this type of plastic, which is a polythyrene
plastic, just so that that predator won't be able to catch you with his thermal vision.
Thanks a lot, thanks for watching.