Just like the lens for the color camera is behind a glass window which you can see through, the lens for the thermal camera is behind a germanium window that you can't see through.
Yes, you could see through the germanium lens with another thermal camera, which would allow you to see the the thermal sensor behind the lens. Though just like you can't see much through the clear lens of an optical sensor due to the way the glass is formed into a lens, you wouldn't see much detail of the thermal sensor.
Thermal cameras work on different wavelengths where glass is opaque. However germanium is transparent in the wavelengths thermal cameras use but opaque to the wavelengths color cameras (and our eyes) see. The fundamental physics for the lenses are the same, they just use different materials for color lenses vs thermal lenses.
also perplexing: since germanium crystals are grown much like silicon crystals, you would typically cut roundish wafers from them:
so cutting a rectangle out of a circle, and using that rectangle to cover another circle would seem to use 2x as much raw germanium (without re-grow) as just cutting a round wafer to cover a round lens.
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Comments (10)
Undisclosed #1
ok, it's fixed, but it doesn't look like it has a lens at all, unless it's one of those nano-engineered, wave-guided, fresnel bastards.
how did FLIR manage to "flatten the curve"?
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Emad Aboulola
What is the range of the dx-612 ?
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