[HN Gopher] Show HN: I shot high-res stitched panoramas in Icela... ___________________________________________________________________ Show HN: I shot high-res stitched panoramas in Iceland using a thermal camera Author : dheera Score : 403 points Date : 2021-01-02 17:00 UTC (5 hours ago) (HTM) web link (petapixel.com) (TXT) w3m dump (petapixel.com) | mmaunder wrote: | I'm curious what kind of thermal camera he's using. | | I bought a Therm-App Pro 640x480 a while back and it's quite good | - and reasonably priced compared to Flir - along with a github | repo for different false color palettes. But what's really weird | is it seems to not be available anymore. I'm guessing export | restrictions or massive demand for thermal cameras during Covid | along with supply chain issues. IIRC it is also 25 frames a | second, which is unusually high for thermal cameras due to export | restrictions. | | Edit: Here's a post on creating panoramic images with therm-app. | https://www.flickr.com/groups/therm-app-users/discuss/721576... | [deleted] | [deleted] | giantg2 wrote: | Looks really nice. I see one for sale in the US. $4k though. | dheera wrote: | OP here. Seek RevealPro. I added a top-level comment with some | more details and links :) | mmaunder wrote: | Thanks OP. Really great work on those Iceland pics. It's an | original concept I haven't seen before - adding thermal data | to panoramas of landscapes with geothermal heat. So cool. I'm | a bit jealous I didn't think of it first. | | Sounds like you have a science background and field, but I'd | encourage you to think of these as art and chat to a few | galleries about an exhibition. At the very least it would be | fun, and pretty amazing to see big blowups of your own | imagery. They may be able to do a virtual exhibition during | Covid. | dheera wrote: | > chat to a few galleries about an exhibition | | I would love to! I'm a physics/EE major by training and | career-wise I'm focused on ML and robotics, but I love art | and _especially_ using art to visualize science in ways | that are understandable to the general public. (I 'm also | doing an astrophotography project to show the visual sizes | of various nebulae. Your usual NASA photos don't really | provide any sense of scale, and many people have the | misconception that you need insane magnification to see | them, but there are actually a whole lot of objects that | are visually much bigger than the moon, just too dim to | see.) | | Being an engineer by background my network is mostly | engineers -- I don't really have any strong connections | with galleries and media, but I'll be on the lookout for | them! I welcome intros if anyone would be so kind. :) TIA! | bobbob1921 wrote: | I was wondering this too, the author added this info via a | reply in the comments (of his site/article , not HN)- | | > Author here. The camera was a Seek RevealPro which has | 320x240 resolution. The thermal data in the panoramas are | stitched together from raw data exported by the camera and | represented as color (hue+saturation, as per scale in upper | right, represents temperature data). | | The brightness channel is piecewise-linearly combined with a | corresponding visual image taken with a regular SLR to provide | a visual reference of what you're looking at. | mmaunder wrote: | I think the ThermApp cameras had the ability to combine a | visual photo, but I haven't used mine for quite some time so | I may be wrong. | ChrisMarshallNY wrote: | Awesome stuff! Thanks for sharing it! | | I'm used to thermal cameras being so lo-res you can barely tell | what they are. | ahmadhamza19 wrote: | Really amazing photos. | pachico wrote: | From what I know, it's hard not do do awesome pictures in | Iceland. What a marvelous place... | NDimCube wrote: | Nice results, thermal cameras aren't easy to work with, | especially in terms of artistic result. I've seen problems with | stitching resulting with artifacts in panoramas. As I understood | (I'm not thermal cameras expert) it's due too the fact that | sensor warms up -> thermal camera calibration doesn't correct the | result enough -> stitching needs corrections. | | To put it one dimension higher, in Pix4D we work on 3d models | based on the thermal images: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-jp9a1bpVU Example: | https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/thermal-model-of-pix4d-headq... | supernova87a wrote: | If only the cost of thermal imagers could come down and be more | affordable, more people might be interested! | SoSoRoCoCo wrote: | It's $570: | | https://www.amazon.com/Seek-RQ-AAA-Thermal-Revealpro/dp/B07B... | jcims wrote: | That and the associated optics. | | There's some reason for encouragement however. I bought a Seek | Pro, with 320x240 resolution, on sale for $350 earlier this | year. The app is pretty terrible unfortunately and the camera | physical construction is flimsy, but the imager seems to be of | reasonable quality for the price point. | | Couple of examples: https://imgur.com/a/ZGsOwUm | ampdepolymerase wrote: | Thermal imaging resolution is restricted by arm control laws | unfortunately. There are forces at work beyond market forces. | jcims wrote: | ITAR compliance assurance isn't free and certainly impacts | operational costs, but the sensor I have isn't export | controlled and still normally costs >$1K when you buy it | from FLIR. | jansan wrote: | I once rented an IR camera for roughly 100EUR. This is | probably the best option for people who only need IR cameras | on very few occasions. | | Will we ever see chap(ish) IR cameras? Is there an | alternative to germanium lenses on the horizon? | CamperBob2 wrote: | Zinc selenide lenses for laser cutters work very well in | the spectral range covered by consumer IR cameras. They are | dirt cheap on eBay, Ali Express, and other places. | jcims wrote: | I believe there are some metamaterial-based approaches for | the actual microbolometers that should help drive costs | down. Ostensibly metamaterials could also be used for | lenses but I'm not aware of anything there, we're probably | stuck with germanium for the time being. | giantg2 wrote: | That carboy is pretty hot. | jcims wrote: | It was a pretty hot yeast: https://i.imgur.com/YGhx1kr.jpg | gandalfian wrote: | Yes I do covet them. Getting cheaper but still fairly low | resolution. Keep hoping for a tipping point like digital | cameras where cheap decent sensors will suddenly be everywhere. | Not yet though. | soared wrote: | I'd imagine demand for thermal imaging has skyrocketed due to | covid, so its possible the tech will get better and cheaper. | jstanley wrote: | I bought one on eBay a few years ago for about PS300, but it | sucked so I got rid of it. It used a traditional camera to draw | most of the image (itself already quite low-res), and just | highlighted even-more-low-res temperature data in blue and red. | SoSoRoCoCo wrote: | I was just considering buying one. Would you share your | thoughts? | jstanley wrote: | The resolution was too low. | | I didn't really have a use in mind for it, I just thought | it was interesting and thought I'd find uses for it after I | owned it, but the resolution was too low to be able to do | anything useful. | | Here's the only picture I have of it working: | https://img.jes.xxx/1047 | | As you can see, you can't see anything. | SoSoRoCoCo wrote: | > As you can see, you can't see anything. | | Thank you. | | I wanted to get one to (a) find creatures outside at | night while camping, and (b) fix my house energy leaks. | But that rez seems awfully low. So amazed at the OP for | doing such an amazing job stitching images! | dheera wrote: | I've had decent luck finding and seeing creatures with | the Seek RevealPro I used, although there may be better | ones out by now. | | I even used it to try to find a friend's lost cat once. I | didn't succeed in finding the cat with it, but I did end | up finding a few other stray cats and racoons. (For | anyone wondering, the pet cat was found later and was | taken to a shelter by some good samaritan.) | dheera wrote: | Hi everyone, OP here. | | I used a Seek RevealPro which outputs TIFF files that contain | 32-bit floating point values. I created a script that takes in a | Seek TIFF and outputs an 8-bit greyscale integer TIFF: | | https://github.com/dheera/iceland-thermal/blob/master/script... | | I then panoramically stitched those 8-bit TIFFs together (some | with the help of hugin, and some manually with GIMP) and | distortion-corrected them as best as I could to a black-and-white | visible light image. I also created an artistically-chosen color | map for each image. For the final output image, hue and | saturation are fully based on thermal data, and lightness is a | combination of thermal and visible data. Scripts to generate the | final output images, along with the panoramically pre-stitched | data, and the color maps I used: | | https://github.com/dheera/iceland-thermal | | Also, my Instagram, which is mostly astrophotography of late, but | I did post thermal images there before and I may do so in the | future again if I can find another good set of interesting | thermal subjects to do this in! | | https://instagram.com/dheeranet/ | skybrian wrote: | Have you tried any other thermal cameras and how did they | compare? | dheera wrote: | Not too many, for personal projects I'm mostly budget- | constrained. I tried the Flir C2 but the thermal data was | extremely low resolution, and returned it. I also tried a | Flir Lepton 2 module since I could use an RPi and some | gadgetry to do the panorama scanning and stitching | automatically, but it too was low resolution (80x60). | | The Lepton 3 seems to be decent at 160x120 though, which is | probably good enough for a project like this, so if I were | doing this again I'd probably use a Lepton 3 and a 2-axis | servo scanner with a RPi, and maybe even combine it with an | RPi HQ camera to automate the entire process into a single | push button. | | The Seek RevealPro is slightly annoying in that it doesn't | have programmatic access so I had to press a button to take | every piece of the panorama. It's a great general-use device | though. I use it when camping or doing astrophotography in | remote locations for some peace of mind since I can spot any | potential wildlife and people threats from a distance, and I | can easily identify whether a parked or seemingly abandoned | car has been recently occupied. (My fears may be unfounded, | but either way I'm much more at ease when I can see in the | dark.) | giantg2 wrote: | I was recently looking at the Lepton. I would really like a | to make an affordable monocular. It seemed like the image | quality was quite low even for the 160. I'm not sure if | adding some lenses for magnification would improve them or | not. The refresh rate is pretty slow too. I'd love to | experiment with it, but $200 is a lot for a project that | might not be usable. | | The Boson seems like it has great clarity and refresh rate, | but at that price I might as well just buy a purpose made | device (outside my price range). | tpmx wrote: | That photo with the icelandic horses - how did you pull that | off with a QVGA-resolution thermal camera + stitching? Animals | tend to move... | dheera wrote: | Yeah so I tried to get that shot about a dozen times on | various farms before I finally found some horses that seemed | tired, lethargic, and didn't move too fast. | | I also had to stand there for a good 15 minutes in the biting | cold before they stopped being interested in me and kind of | just stood there. | | They still occasionally turned their heads though so I | quickly snapped my visible light image with a DSLR in one | hand on a tripod and scanned over the horse part with the | thermal camera in the other, before patiently scanning the | rest of the scene. The horses in the distance though still | did move, as you can see in the separate thermal/visible | images in the repo. | | I had to do a similar thing for the erupting geyser. 2 quick | thermal shots in rapid succession for the eruption in one | hand, DSLR in the other, then scanned the rest of the scene. | Took about maybe 20 tries at least. | [deleted] | gandalfian wrote: | Cunning. He took panoramas with thermal camera and simultaneous | black and white photos and coloured the b&w photos with the data | from the thermal camera. Interesting examples of insulation. I | wonder how the result compares to the standard Flir auto blended | images. Msx? | brk wrote: | This would be better than FLIR's MSX, which generally suffers | from a lack of precise alignment of the thermal and optical | images, particularly for shots with a lot of depth of field. | systemvoltage wrote: | Why are Thermal cameras lagging in resolution? Visible wavelength | cameras can be had upwards of 50MP for $5k. | rahimiali wrote: | Visible wavelength cameras rely on relatively cheap CMOS | sensors. CMOS processes have been squeezed for efficiency for | decades to make, for example cheap DRAM. | | The technologies behind thermal cameras are very different | because they need to be sensitive to wavelengths 10x longer | than visible light (the silicon in CMOS is basically completely | insensitive to light above 2 um, whereas thermal cameras need | to image at ~10 um). The pixels are effectively microbolometers | and rely on more exotic materials like Germanium. | jzwinck wrote: | Thermal cameras measure much larger waves (7-14 microns as | described in the article), and their sensitivity to amplitude | is high. | | A major limiting factor in camera sensor resolution is signal | to noise ratio. It is well known that if you bump up the "ISO" | (light sensitivity) to make photographs at night, you see more | noise. The higher the sensor resolution, the smaller each | photosite and therefore the less signal (fewer photons) | captured in the short time of one exposure. | | Larger sensors can solve this problem but these are CMOS | devices whose cost increases superlinearly with area (like | microprocessors, see die yield). Most customers won't accept | dead pixels. | | Economics is also a major enabler of kilobuck 50 MP visible | light cameras, miracles though they are. Industrial users | aren't going to re-buy all their cameras every few years like | DSLR users do. | jedimastert wrote: | I wonder if lower-iso long-exposure thermals would be useful, | or if it would get too "motion blurred" | tpmx wrote: | This is just slighly informed, please prove me wrong. | | The major market so far seems to have been tactical/military, | so they have focused on framerates rather than resolution. And | then the US blocked high framerates for civilian use... | supernova87a wrote: | As I recall, IR sensors are also much more expensive to | produce, as in, 1Kx1K is already a very large array and costs | thousands of $. So any ordinary consumer is not likely to be | using something with very high resolution. | giantg2 wrote: | I agree. The median income in the US is $35k, and many of | these things are 5-10% of that. | | I'd really like a monocular, but anything decent is very | expensive. | 0xFluegel wrote: | The sensor needs a lot more energy. This produces two types of | IR cams: actively and passively cooled. The passive cooling is | easy to take around with you but only possible with a smaller | sensor. | | As for the price per pixel: I don't know from memory. | semi-extrinsic wrote: | I think it's a combination of physics (wavelength is 20x larger | than visual light, making optics and sensors trickier) and | export control, as you could (literally) weaponize a high-res | thermal camera to make an autonomous drone/missile targetting | hot exhaust etc. | deadw3ight wrote: | That's sick! Brilliant and creative idea. Those shots look | beautiful. | brianjunyinchan wrote: | Love the beautifully haunting perspective. | cs702 wrote: | Beautiful. Eerie. Great work. Thank you for sharing. | | Your images look almost like they came out of James Cameron's | vivid imagination. If you had told me these were computer- | generated images of Pandora at night[a] from the upcoming Avatar | sequel, I would have believed it. | | [a] E.g., see | https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=avatar%20pandora%20... | osamagirl69 wrote: | I have done a lot of work with high resolution thermal imagers | and never seen any images that look like these so I was curious | what was going on. | | >I also simultaneously shot a black-and-white photo with a | regular camera and a wide-angle lens for comparison. I then wrote | my own program to color the black-and-white photograph with the | actual thermal data, using a false-color scale which you see in | the upper-right corner of every image. | | Amazing drawings, but these are not actually thermal images. | [deleted] | dheera wrote: | OP here -- I added a top-level comment with some more links. In | particular you can find the separate thermal and visible images | on the repo: https://github.com/dheera/iceland-thermal | osamagirl69 wrote: | Thanks for the clarification! This makes sense, the reason | your images look 'off' is that the normal thermal pallets | (such as the one in your colorbar) are typically a roughly | constant (or at least smoothly varying) luminance with the | thermal information stored in the chroma. Your images have | that multiplied by the visible light image intensity which | gives a very surreal effect. Fun stuff | mmaunder wrote: | Pure thermal would have been quite smudged. IMHO the B&W adds | really nice context - and it sounds like it's not just a | straight overlay, but he's recoloring the B&W pixels, which I | think provides a crisper result. | | I'm curious what resolutions you've worked with, if you don't | mind sharing. High frame rate thermal cameras (above 9hz) are | ITAR restricted. Hi-res above 640x480 is not common on the | consumer market and is restricted to embargoed countries. | Cooled thermal cameras are restricted too IIRC. | osamagirl69 wrote: | The device we had was 1.3MP--rough the same resolution as the | composite image discussed in this article. The camera core | was expensive, but the lens actually cost more than the | sensor. Yes it was ITAR regulated. | | As an example of what I would have expected, this product | brief (not the device we were using, but similar) has a | picture of the white house | https://www.lockheedmartin.com/content/dam/lockheed- | martin/m... | schoen wrote: | (That building is the U.S. Capitol rather than the White | House.) | semi-extrinsic wrote: | That's the Capitol building though, not the White House? | osamagirl69 wrote: | probably - I have never actually been to DC | mmaunder wrote: | Thanks. Interesting link. I must admit I can't help but | admire Lockheed's marketing with that whitehouse image. | There's a not-so-subtle message in there. | | Sounds like super interesting work!! | fpoling wrote: | I presume that was with 16 bits per pixel, which is not | available in consumer cameras. | fpoling wrote: | At my previous work I was involved with processing of data | from 1024x800 cameras with 16 bit per pixel and nice optics. | After proper calibration and trivial image processing they | were not particularly blurry since they were able to resolve | even tiny temperature differences. | andreareina wrote: | Don't commercial thermal imaging cameras also do a | thermal/visible composite? Would those also not count as | thermal images? | smoldesu wrote: | New Wallpaper Get! ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-01-02 23:00 UTC)