Thermal imagers that accurately measure temperatures

There are two common types of thermal imagers:

1) Those which produce a thermal image of a scene

as a picture or video – known as Non-Radiometric Thermal Imagers. These are commonly used to detect the presence of something hot or cold in a scene like a deer at the side of a road, an intruder or the presence of a hot area somewhere on an object.

2) Those which produce a thermal image of a scene as a picture or video and accurately measure temperatures anywhere within that thermal scene – known as Radiometric Thermal Imagers. These are commonly used for automation, process control or quality verification.

Many imagers which are described as Radiometric are only calibrated at one central point in the thermal image and make assumptions about temperature measurement accuracy elsewhere in the scene. It might be argued that one accurate point in the scene makes a thermal imager Radiometric, that isn’t what most customers expect.