ThermAppCam Auto

This fork is designed to allow the Therm-App thermal imaging camera for use as a webcam-like device with minimal effort.

New features

• Automatic non-uniformity calibration (keep lens cover on when starting software)
• Automatic dead pixel detection during the NUC process and correction
• Image range scaling
• YUV (V4L2_PIX_FMT_YUV420) instead of Grey (V4L2_PIX_FMT_GREY) output for better compatibility with security software (eg. motion or mjpgstreamer)
• Image is the right way round by default (instead of horizontally flipped)
• Image can be vertically flipped (arg = 1 for vflip, = 0 for normal)

Dependencies

• v4l2loopback
• libusb >= 1.0

Installation

cd thermapp
make
sudo make install

Usage

First make sure the v4l2loopback kernel module is loaded:

sudo modprobe v4l2loopback

Plug in the camera. Keep the lens covered as you start the software:

sudo thermapp

The software will read 50 frames for its automatic calibration. After that is complete, you may remove the lens cap and open /dev/video0 in your video player of choice.

To quit, either press Ctrl+C or unplug the camera.

Troubleshooting

• Try a different cable. Use a high-quality USB cable.
• Try plugging the camera into a different USB port.
• Make sure the camera is plugged into a USB 2.0-compatible port. The camera will not work on USB 1.x ports since their max bulk transfer size is < 512 bytes.
• Edit TRANSFER_SIZE in thermapp.h and then re-install. Try reducing it to 512. Reducing the transfer size will result in higher CPU load.

Todo

• Histogram Equalization instead of linear image range scaling
• Smarter dead pixel detection
• Download and use the camera's calibration data
• Colour LUT support