How Do Infrared Cameras Work (Part II)
How Do Infrared Cameras Work (Part II)
An IR camera is composed of a lens, a thermal sensor, processing boards, and a housing. The lens gathers infrared energy onto the sensor which forms different ranges of pixel configurations from 80 × 60 to 1280 × 1024 pixels or more. This is also called the resolution of the thermal camera.
These resolutions are low when comparing to visible light imagers since thermal detectors need to sense energy that has much larger wavelengths than EO light, requiring each sensor element to be significantly larger. Therefore, an infrared camera usually has much lower resolution (fewer pixels) than visible sensors of the same mechanical size.
Important specifications to consider when choosing a thermal camera include resolution, range, field of view, focus, thermal sensitivity, and spectral range.
