Thermal Imagers and System Considerations
In this chapter the history of thermal imaging is briefly reviewed and a number of applications are identified before a discussion of how a thermal image is formed and what a thermal image looks like and why it looks that way. As a first step in choosing an infrared imager for use in animal studies and population surveys in the wild we examine the performance parameters provided by both the mid-wave IR band (MWIR) and long wavelength IR band (LWIR) thermal imagers, which feature high thermal sensitivity, spatial resolution, and thermal resolution. Another parameter of importance (signal-to-noise ratio) can be used to give physical insight into the significance of these parameters and how they relate to features we see in images.