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Thermal Spectrums
Thermal imagery can be viewed in many ways. The industry has identified a number of “Standard” color choices to help the human eye and brain interpret infrared radiation. They each have their own advantages and disadvantages, and changing between them mid job can help “reset” or rest the viewer’s eyes.
It is all relative to heat reflectivity
WHITE HOT: displays warmer objects in white and cooler objects in black. For quick analysis White Hot and Black Hot are the most useful.
BLACK HOT: the inverted version of White Hot, displaying warmer objects as black and cooler objects as white. Black Hot is probably the most useful, especially in locating unusual activity or Search and Rescue.
RAINBOW: a general-purpose palette that uses a wide range of colors to display temperature differences.
RAINBOW HC: uses different colors to display minute temperature differences, Rainbow HC stands for High Contrast and is best suited for scenes with minimal heat change.
IRONBOW: quickly identifies thermal anomalies and body heat, Ironbow uses color to show heat distribution and subtle details. Ironbow provides a great “overall” view of typical emissive values and is very useful for utility work.
LAVA: displays warmer objects in red and cooler objects in blues. Persoanlly I use Lava views to rest my eyes and allow them to “reset” while viewing others. However some use it just like Ironbow.
ARCTIC: displays warmer objects in yellow and cooler objects in blue.
SEARING: displays warmer objects in shates of red and cooler objects in grayscale.
GRADIATION: displays warmer objects in white and cooler objects in black. The hottest areas are highlighted in shades of red.
Heat Detection mode: warmer objects are shown in white and cooler objects in black. Only the hottest temperatures are displayed in red. This mode can be enhanced with some automated image processing for different conditions.
