Picothermal Turns Your Smartphone Into a Thermal Camera
Thermal cameras are useful for everything from diagnosing electrical problems to finding heat leaks in buildings. But they tend to be relatively expensive, especially when high-resolution imaging is involved. There are cheaper alternatives that connect to smartphones, but many of those rely on proprietary apps that may eventually stop working. To get around these limitations, Cezar Chirila designed and built Picothermal, an open source thermal camera that connects to a smartphone or computer over USB-C and works directly in a web browser.
This isn't Chirila's first attempt at building a thermal camera. An earlier project used an MLX90640 infrared sensor with a resolution of just 32×24 pixels. While that was enough for basic thermal imaging, Chirila wanted something with better image quality, a larger display, and longer battery life. Rather than building all of those features into another standalone device, he decided to take advantage of hardware already available...
Copyright of this story solely belongs to www.hackster.io. To see the full text click HERE
