Ipad Thermal Image

I'm new to the Apple product line as I haven't figured out how to get the image off of the Ipad yet. I didn't know at the time but it can take a thermal image which quality is not great and of course no temperature measurement. As prevalent as these devices are, will home owners be doing their own homes? Could hurt the home inspector business......or maybe home inspectors will be using Ipads. If anyone knows the detail or spec of this gadget I'm curious.

My Best,

Hi Jeff

Are you saying there's an iPad app that allows the device to capture a thermal image?  Are you sure?  I just wanted to check.   I don't think they have infrared detectors installed in them.  It is my understanding that is nothing more than a special effect app which utilizes the device's visual camera.  It's not a real thermal image.  Or are you referring to FLIRs app that uses an iPad in conjunction with their infrared camera line.  That's different.  Maybe I misunderstood your post.

Matt,

Not sure. If you open up the camera feature its one of the options....infrared image I think. I took an image of my fire place and appears to show thermal differences. I've not downloaded any special app for this and not the Flir app you mentioned. I should have waited to post this until I had the image to share. I was planning on taking another image with my Flir camera just for comparison. Flir's message has been Infrared Everywhere so I thought it's possible. It's likely some special effect as you mentioned. I will try to post the image tomorrow. Thanks!

I think you will find the answer when you look for a thermal pattern on something that has no visible pattern, and the opposite, looking at a visible pattern that shouldn't show a thermal pattern... ;-)

They are either putting it through a filter, or just introducing false color to the image through an image processing routine. Some images will look good, almost like an IR image in a rainbow palette.

For fun, I just grabbed the free (luckily)  "Infrared Camera - Heat Seeking" app for my iPhone and this is what it did to a picture on the wall in our office:

Visual, taken with the standard iPhone camera app:

And here's the "Infrared":

Looks like it takes colors that are visibly lighter and makes those "hot" in the IR version.

Have to say you all have solved this. Interesting for sure, I will still try to post my fire place pic tomorrow. If nothing else it was good conversation / debate! Thanks...JG

Funny stuff. To answer one of Jeff's question, I think that yes, homeowners will be doing IR inspections of their own homes using iPad apps, not realizing the problem. First guy here to get an email from a customer with an iPad IR image showing a "problem" wins a six-pack from me.

hahaha... I wish I can say I had that question.

I hear iPhone 4s is equipped with Xray vision and a small water tank - in case you get thirsty after a long day of Xraying.

Anyone ever try the iDevice app that connects to FLIR imagers? I was considering using it for streamlining the reporting process, but I want to know how well it actually works.