Thermal imagers use heat rather than visible light to create images. Thermal cameras gather infrared energy and convert it to digital or analogue video outputs to create images.
Thermal imaging is an easy and effective way to measure thermal conditions in the environment. It is a non-invasive, real-time technique that is widely used by engineers, architects, and environmental scientists.
In this post, we’ll look at some thermal image processing software options available, such as Process Parameter’s thermal imaging camera software, so that you can choose the right one to suit your needs.
How to Choose Thermal Image Processing Software
The same way photographers use photo editing software to make photos more appealing, thermographers use thermal imaging software to enhance and analyze thermal images.
Here are a few key features that you should look for when selecting thermal image processing software:
- Processing images in multiple formats – This feature allows you to process thermal images in different formats like .tiff, .avi, and .jpg.
- Image editing capabilities – With this feature, you can apply colour alarms on an infrared image, change emissivity and add markers.
- Combine infrared images with visible light – this feature enables you to easily locate problem areas in a thermal image by blending them with visible light.
- Real-time viewing and sharing – With this feature, you can live share thermal images and videos through your smartphone or desktop.
- Ability to create custom reports – this feature allows you to build custom reports that you can send in .docx or .pdf formats.
- Ability to perform 3D analysis – This feature enables you to view infrared images in 3D to identify problem areas better and find false positives.
- Ability to annotate video and add text – This feature enables to add some texts and videos to help in reporting.
- Thermal image comparison – This feature enables you to compare two infrared images, which might be from the same target but taken at different times.
- Ability to change colour scheme – With this feature, you can change the colour scheme to highly contrasting colours to help identify hot and cold areas more easily.
Thermal Image Processing Software Options
Below are the three thermal imaging software options that we believe will be suitable for you.
FLIR Thermal Studio Suite
Teledyne FLIR has released several versions of FLIR Software for infrared image processing, but the one that caught our eye was FLIR Thermal Studio Suite. This software is like an all package deal for professional thermal image analysis.
FLIR Thermal Studio Suite has three payment plans. The first is free, the second is standard ($199 per year), and the third is the professional plan ($399 per year). You can use this software to analyze thousands of thermal images and videos, regardless of the type of thermal camera you used to capture the images.
The feature available in this software include:
- Customized report templates for quick reporting
- Editing and enhancing infrared images and videos
- Ability to analyse in multiple languages (over 20 languages)
- Ability to organize images and data by asset
- Adding text and audio annotations
Fluke Thermal Imaging Software
Fluke Thermal Imaging Software also has plenty of features to enable you to quickly and effectively analyze thermal images and videos. What’s great is that you can download this software for free. It works well with Fluke thermal imaging cameras.
The feature available in this software include:
- Real-time sharing of thermal images and videos
- Organize infrared images by title, severity and asset
- Ability to connect camera with your PC
- Building reports and creating templates
- Edit and enhance thermal images
SmartView IR Analysis and Reporting Software
Fluke has yet another thermal image processing software by the name SmartView IR Analysis and Reporting Software. This software comes with all Fluke thermal cameras and Infrared thermometers, and it has a suite of tools to help ease the analysis of infrared images and videos.
The features in this software include:
- Build customized reports
- Easy sharing of reports
- Edit and analyse thermal images
- Ability to add colour alarms
- Blend visible light with infrared images
Closing Remarks
Thermal image processing software is a good tool for editing, analyzing and reporting infrared images and videos. When choosing a thermal imaging software, go for the one with extensive features and capabilities. The three options that we believe might suit your needs include FLIR Thermal Studio Suite, Fluke Thermal Imaging Software and SmartView IR Analysis and Reporting Software.