Fluke thermal cameras provide various options to work with live thermal image.
These options include:
- Remote display
- Without remote control
- Without remote control
- Remote display for fixed mount cameras (RSE300&RSE600)
- Thermal video recording on camera
- Non-radiometric
- Radiometric
- Thermal imaging live data streaming
Remote display
Without remote control
When a thermal camera provides remote display functionality, you can see the display of the camera via the software you use to communicate with the camera.
Please pay attention: in the remote display mode no measurement data are being sent to the software. The camera just sends the image of its display as a digital video stream, using USB or WiFi connection.
Remote display functionality is supported by SmartView and Fluke Connect Desktop software on desktops or laptops.
Please note, that within the Fluke Connect Desktop software, the remote display is called "Mirror Mode", which means, that the Fluke Connect Desktop software can "mirror" the camera display for remote view.
FC Desktop menu to access Remote Display via Mirror Mode
FC Desktop remote display via Mirror Mode
SmartView menu to access Remote Display
SmartView Remote Display window
For mobile phones or tablets remote display functionality is provided within the Fluke Connect mobile app for the cameras, which support remote display functionality.
With remote control
Some cameras provide possibility of remote control while showing the remote display via the software. The remote display window with remote control activated provides access to all buttons of the camera and even simulates the behavior of the touchscreen of the camera, providing access to all camera controls directly from the display itself the same way like you would have with the camera in your hands.
FC Desktop Mirror Mode window with Remote Control
SmartView Remote Display with remote control
Remote display for fixed mount cameras (RSE300&RSE600)
For the mount cameras, i.e. RSE300 and RSE600, as they are the cameras for mount applications and they have no separate display, the remote display is provided via web interface. When you know the camera IP address, you can enter this IP address in the web-browser and get access to the camera web user interface (web-UI).
When you do not know the IP address of RSE300 or RSE600 cameras, you should use SmartView for initial connection. It will provide base diagnostics of the connectivity, will find the IP address of the camera and will open your browser with the correct IP address of the camera.
The web-UI of the RSE300&RSE600 is accessible both via wired and wireless network.
The web-UI of the RSE300&RSE600 provides possibility to change camera focus, select camera subrange, update camera firmware, download the calibration certificate from the camera memory, setup parameters for the camera Ethernet or WiFi connection.
Thermal video recording on camera
Video recording on camera can be provided in non-radiometric and radiometric format.
Non-radiometric video recording
Non-radiometric video recording is just a recording of the image which camera shows on its display, in .avi or .mp4 formats. Depending on the settings of what is displayed on the camera screen, the recording may include markers and display graphics, or not. In any case, this is a normal video recording, which can be viewed without special thermal imaging software. But this type of recording does not contain any temperature measurement data, consequently the image from the non-radiometric thermal video cannot be analyzed in the thermal imaging analysis software, cannot be adjusted or changed later other than with standard video image editing tools.
The framerate for non-radiometric video recording on camera will be provided according to the camera specifications for the video recording, but not faster, than provided camera framerate, i.e. for 9 Hz cameras it will be limited to 9 frames per second only.
Radiometric video recording
Radiometric video recording provides recording of the thermal camera detector signal together with calibration information. The format used for radiometric video recording on Fluke cameras is .is3 format. Each frame of this recording is actually a radiometric thermal image, which allows all the same modification and analysis, as for thermal images. Unlike the normal non-radiometric video recording, this type of recording contains actual measurement data, consequently lossy compression algorithms used for non-radiometric video recording are not applicable in this case. This leads then to much bigger file size for radiometric video recordings compared to non-radiometric video recording. And the amount of data recorded also puts some limitations on the resolution of the visual image recorded together with the thermal imaging data. In Fluke cameras visual stream is usually limited and downscaled to 640x480 resolution for radiometric video recording.
As a consequence, the maximum radiometric video recording framerate is defined by the thermal camera onboard electronics processing power and internal memory speed. Usually the maximum framerate for radiometric video recording is achieved when using recording to internal memory. For actual specified framerate for radiometric video recording, please refer to the thermal camera users manual.
For 9 Hz versions of the cameras radiometric video recording is also limited to 9 frames per second.
Radiometric video recording can be converted to standard video using the tools provided within the thermal imaging analysis software: Fluke Connect Desktop, SmartView or SmartView R&D.
Thermal imaging live data streaming
For R&D applications the capacity of the video recording onboard of the camera may not be enough. On top of this, R&D applications may involve live trend over time, use of additional postprocessing algorithms applied to the thermal data provided by a thermal camera. In this case there is a need to stream radiometric thermal imaging data to external processing device, like personal computer (PC).
To provide this functionality the camera should allow streaming the thermal data to external port at high speed. The best results are achieved, when the camera hardware is specially designed to provide radiometric thermal imaging data streaming without delays. As measurement data do not allow using of lossy compression algorithms, a significant bandwidth is required for full speed full frame data acquisition from a thermal camera.
The cameras, which are designed for fast data streaming are the cameras designed for fixed mount applications, like RSE300 and RSE600. These cameras allow to stream radiometric thermal imaging data at high speed of 60 frames per second for full 640x480 resolution, including both thermal imaging and visual stream. Visual stream is also limited to 640x480 resolution in this case. A thermal imaging data with 640x480 resolution at 60 frames per second require the bandwidth of about 600 Mbit per second. This is the reason, why these cameras require gigabit Ethernet connection.
The streamed data are captured by the software working continuously at the PC side. This can be either Fluke provided software, like SmartView or SmartView R&D, which support working with the thermal camera data streaming mode, or a custom software created by the end-user using MATLAB or LabVIEW libraries provided by Fluke to support custom software development.
In the live data streaming mode the thermal imaging data are being recorded in the .is3 format. As live data streaming also involves the display of the thermal image with calculation of temperatures in each point, the number of captured and recorded frames per second is also defined by performance of the PC used for data streaming. If the performance of the PC is not enough, or the bandwidth of the communication line (Ethernet) is limited, then the maximum speed provided by the camera may be not achieved.
The general recommendation to achieve the maximum framerate while using live data streaming is to have a dedicated PC, powerful enough to process all data, with the hard drive fast enough to record the data at high speed, and with the dedicated Ethernet port for the communication with the thermal camera, preferably with no other devices or no other cameras connected to the same network to avoid the bandwidth constraints.
The following Fluke camera models provide thermal imaging data streaming: Ti480Pro, TiX580, RSE300, RSE600.
Ti480Pro and TiX580 allow to achieve about 16.5 frames per second at 640x480 thermal image resolution in live data streaming mode with 60 Hz models. This limitation is implied by the speed of the camera external data transfer port.
RSE300 and RSE600 allow to achieve 60 frames per second at 640x480 thermal image resolution in live data streaming mode with 60 Hz models.
All 9 Hz versions are limited to 9 frames per second for live data streaming.
Overview of the options to work with live thermal image with Fluke cameras
Below you can see a diagram showing possible options for working with live image available with Fluke thermal cameras