About

Welcome to IRWeb.INFO, a Web Guide to applications of Thermal Infrared Radiation Thermometers and Thermal Infrared Cameras, also known as Thermal Imagers.

(Image Courtesy NASA: Infra-red image of the Orbitor’s starboard wing, taken with the EVA IR Camera.)

It provides a searchable repository of stories and commented web links to resources for those interested in correctly using IR Thermometers, Infrared Thermal Imagers, Radiation Thermometers, Line Scanning IR Thermometers, and thermal Infrared Night Vision devices.

It also is a place where users may share their experiences easily by commenting on any previously published article and resource paper or by submitting their own stories of successes and failures.

Both are important yet seldom discussed openly.

It was Richard Feynman, a Nobel Prize winning physicist, who once observed “We have a habit in writing articles published in scientific journals to make the work as finished as possible, …. So there isn’t any place to publish, in a dignified manner, what you actually did in order to get to do the work”.

Special categories have been set up to cover “What worked (and what didn’t) for me”. You are welcome to share your experiences. Registration is no longer required, and it is all free. We do review all submissions for appropriateness and readability and may edit yours or not accept it.

We have adopted some Open Source blog software to create this site. I think you will find it useful, interesting and easy to use. Hopefully you will be moved to suggest or submit other content.

The bottom line is: This site shows where and how these unique devices have and can be used successfully. There is little that is unique in the world today, and the technologies represented in Infrared devices is no exception.

You’ll find that the available infrared images and know-how available on the Web is extensive and contains many duplications. Many people have tried to reinvent the IR “wheel”, so to speak, many times.

The makers of Infrared imaging and measurement devices have vested interest in supporting their users. Many run regular training programs both for first time and experienced users. Much of the class time in those classes is devoted to teaching about the language and science related to the operation of the measurement devices and the physics of infrared emission and detection.

These devices result from technological advances in optical physics and engineering as well as well as he advances in microcomputer and software technologies. They continue to advance almost daily, it seems.

The science that underlies the emission of thermal radiation is basically a constant. It is the same as it has been since Max Planck published his 19th century breakthrough in 1899!

Here you will find listed references to the theory; they abound. There is no need to reinvent that wheel here. We speak mainly to uses and the science & art of camera and sensor uses.

There is a special feature, an optical property of surfaces called emittance or emissivity, that is poorly understood and appreciated by many newcomers, and even some experienced Infrared technology users.

It is more accurately called “Spectral Emissivity” and “Spectral Emittance” (the two names have come to mean essentially the same thing). Rather than attempting to deal with that subject, we have developed a separate website, SpectralEmissivity.com that focuses on it. You can visit it by clicking here.

Hope you learn and enjoy.

Even more so, hope you benefit and return to share. That’s the way the Web works best!

Best wishes,

Ray Peacock

G. Raymond Peacock
President
Temperatures.com, Inc.

PS:

Submitted & accepted articles will have full credit to the author. All submissions are reviewed and you may be contacted to help clarify your submission. See our Submission Policy by clicking here.

The latest articles are added to our rss newsfeed; just click on the rss symbol to add the link to your web browser and be automatically notified of new postings to our database. ————–>

Many people have tried to reinvent the IR “wheel”, so to speak, many times, especially new marketeers who seem inclined to use new, or imprecise jargon to describe these devices, rather than use technically precise terms.

The recent IEC / ISO Infrared Terminology Standard*, IEC 62942-1 TS: “International Technical Specification for Radiation Thermometers”, IEC SC65B WG5 will go a long way to helping unify the language used.

The international committee of experts in the field that worked to develop this standard are working to extend the vocabulary term definitions to the broader area of Thermal Imaging. Most of the nitty-gritty technical terms are about the physics of radiation thermometry, which is common to temperature-measuring Thermal Imagers. That’s now covered in this standard, IEC 62942-1.

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* The standard has been discussed at several venues around the world, among them was the ThermoSense XXX meeting in Orlando Florida in March 2008 in Paper 6939-53 “IEC 62942-1 TS: first international technical specification on the technical data for radiation thermometers” Delivered by Howard W. Yoon, from the USA’s National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Author(s): Joerg Hollandt, Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (Germany); O. Struss, HEITRONICS Infrarot Messtechnik GmbH (Germany); Geoff Beynon, Land Instruments; Rien Bosma, NMi-Van Swinden Lab. B.V. (Netherlands); R. Gaertner, Raytek GmbH (Germany); F. Girard, Istituto Nazionale di Ricerca Metrologica (Italy); M. S. Matveyev, D.I. Mendeleyev Institute for Metrology (Russia); Helen C. McEvoy, National Physical Lab. (United Kingdom); G. Raymond Peacock, Temperatures.com, Inc.; M. Sadli, Lab. National de Metrologie et d’Essais (France); Fumihiro Sakuma, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (Japan); Howard W. Yoon, National Institute of Standards and Technology (USA); Z. Yuan, National Institute of Metrology (China)