While thermal camera or thermal sensor has many important technical parameters which will determine its accuracy of temperature measurement, there are some optical parameters which one should know to determine its real world usage. Like a normal camera, Thermal Camera also has very important component, lens which will influence the temperature measurement. I will be trying to list and explain those optical parameters one should know or consider while selecting a thermal camera for specific application
1. FOV ( Field Of View) : This is one of the widely known or mentioned optical parameters or specification mentioned in any thermal camera. It can be considered as an window or a solid angle through which electromagnetic radiation will enter into the sensor of the thermal camera and the size of the window is the “field of view” of the camera for that distance. Now, it should be evident that, as its an angle, it will get wider and wider as it goes far from the sensor. This angle of view is dependent on focal length of the lens, longer the focal length, narrower the angle of view is and shorter the focal length, wider the angle of view would be. But the FOV is not dependent fully on the focal length of the lens, but also the sensor or detector size and its pixel pitch as well as its pixel count, both horizontally as well as vertically.
Normally, for a same pixel count, if the pixel pitch is greater, it will have greater FOV than the one with smaller pixel pitch.
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