Trying Out The Iphone Infrared Camera

Tell me some more about the camera.

The Infrared Camera actually has two cameras. There is the IR camera with a resolution of 80×60 and a visible camera at 640×480. The 80×60 resolution might seem low (but really most IR cameras have low resolution). However, the Infrared Camera uses these two cameras together to make a more useable image. Here, compare these two images. On the left is a normal FLIR One image and on the right is an image without the visible camera added (this is called MSX blending).

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What about battery life?

The Infrared Camera has its own battery. This means that taking IR pictures really doesn’t use more battery than any other iPhone app. Of course this means that you have to charge the Infrared Camera separately from the iPhone.

What can you use the FLIR One for?

There are some obvious answers here:

  • Home uses: find leaks, pipes, thermal insulation problems, hot wires and cool stuff like that.
  • Seeing in the dark. This isn’t always that useful, but yes – you can use ambient infrared to see stuff without visible light – that is unless everything around you is the same temperature.
  • Looking for animals (or people) in the woods. In the winter, warm blooded animals (like humans) are warmer than the surroundings and stand out. This doesn’t work so well in the summer. First, the leaves get in the way. Second, the animals are about the same temperature as the surroundings. It’s awesome in the winter though.
  • Finding ghosts.  Just kidding.

Can you see through walls?

This was a question from my son. No. You can’t see through walls. Walls are just too thick for IR to penetrate. Actually, you can’t even see through windows or water since IR doesn’t transmit through those substances. But I saw something where the military used IR to see where people where in a house. No, that was just fiction (probably). It almost certainly wasn’t real infrared.

This article comes from wired edit released

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