This project has already provided me with hours of fun and learning, but it's just a basic tool, waiting for creative people to expand it.  What can it become?

I can tell you my plans.  I plan to add in-camera pixel smoothing, like the Processing sketches offer.  I plan to store the camera settings in a config file, and allow it to start up with its last settings remembered.  I plan to learn how to control the emissivity value to sense more accurate temperatures from surfaces that don't radiate heat well, like thin sheets and shiny metals.  I plan to look into the Adafruit libraries for Arcada devices and for the MLX90640, and see if I can speed up some of the camera functions.  In short, my plans are to improve what's already working.

What could you plan?  Could you add an ESP32 FeatherWing and make a wireless thermal webcam? Could you send image data over USB serial to a regular computer for a big-screen thermal cam as a science exhibit, or a thermal photo booth?  A thermal camera security sentry, or baby guardian?  The creativity of the many outweighs the creativity of the one.

Thanks for taking time to explore my little project, and if you do build your own thermal camera and begin capturing interesting images and movies, come to Show and Tell and share what you've done. Inspire others!  Have a grand adventure.

Hallelujah!

This guide was first published on Mar 27, 2020. It was last updated on Mar 28, 2024.

This page (Where Do We Go from Here?) was last updated on Mar 08, 2024.

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