IR camera and method for processing thermal image information

A method for processing information from an IR camera, the method comprising:

• a) receiving a series of IR images in the form of data from an IR sensor;
• b) performing calibration operations on said series of IR images in order to render said IR images radiometric;
• c) performing a compression of said IR images to yield a series of compressed IR images in such a way that a corresponding decompression of the compressed IR images can be performed;
• and
• d) after performing the steps a), b) and c) arriving at a series of radiometric IR images;
• wherein the compression substantially maintains a radiometric mapping of the received IR data values after compression and decompression to an original appearance of the received series of IR images, and
• wherein the substantially maintained radiometric mapping maps every IR data value to only one temperature value but represents each temperature value by one IR data value or a plurality of adjacent IR data values.

An IR camera, comprising:

• an IR detector operable to detect IR radiation from a scene;
• and
• a processor operable to process information from the IR detector, said processor adapted to:
• receive a series of frames of data from the IR detector, said frames of IR data representing detected IR radiation;
• and
• perform a compression of said frames of IR data;
• wherein each data value together with calibration data uniquely represents measured IR radiation from the scene;
• wherein the compression substantially maintains a radiometric mapping of the received IR data values after compression and decompression to an original appearance of the received frames;
• and
• wherein the substantially maintained radiometric mapping maps every IR data value to only one temperature value but represents each temperature value by one IR data value or a plurality of adjacent IR data values.