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April 27, 2005 *– This new camera definitely won’t win the megapixel war, but could be a hot item for infrared imaging digital cameras. Electrophysics Corporation announced their HotShot line of thermography cameras built for industrial inspection of high voltage electrical systems, production machinery and buildings. There are several models in the line, each with application-specific software. The HotShot cameras use a microbolometer infrared sensor that captures highly sensitive thermal images at 160 x 120 pixels.
The Electrophysics HotShot images also collects industrial inspection data that can be output to software programs and reports via USB cable or WiFi card. Images and data can be saved on the 64 MB of internal memory or optional CompactFlash card up to 4 GB. The camera is shaped like a tablet and has hand grips on both sides of the 3.5-inch touch screen LCD. On the opposite side of the LCD screen is the rotating 3x optical zoom lens that is compatible with wide and telephoto conversion lenses. All of these features are designed to be more compact and easier to use than those on other thermography cameras.
"During the early phases of our product development, we interviewed a large number of thermography camera users to learn what they wanted in a next generation camera," said Chris Alicandro, Director of Sales for Electrophysics. "Responses were centered around making the user interface more intuitive and automating the methods of getting field information into reports."
The Electrophysics HotShot is considered more of a tool than a digital camera to engineers, but it still produces interesting thermo images from -20 to 350 degrees and saves them as JPEG and TIFF files. The camera can also display thermo pictures and real images simultaneously on the large LCD screen.