tCam-Mini Rev4 Wireless Thermal Camera Board

tCam-Mini from GroupGets exposes the full capabilities of the radiometric FLIR Lepton in an easy-to-use thermal imaging camera module. The tCam-mini Rev4 has both a Wi-Fi interface and a hardware interface that allow the device to communicate directly with another microcontroller or SBC, such as the Raspberry Pi, without using Wi-Fi. The camera can operate in either radiometric/TLinear (temperature data for each pixel) or AGC modes (no temperature data for each pixel but better images). A simple json-based command set with communication of a TCP/IP socket makes interfacing with the camera straightforward for custom applications.

The cross-platform companion desktop application makes it easy to use the camera and analyze the data on Windows, OSX, or Linux. An iOS mobile app is also available on the Apple App Store®. The software can display images or streams with multiple palettes. It can also save and load images or streams in files preserving the radiometric data for use later or by other applications. The tCam software has tools for the analysis of radiometric data, including a histogram display, analysis of pixel populations, and a spot meter. Up to four additional markers showing temperature can be placed at various points in an image. A graphing function is included to plot spot meter and marker data over time. Graph baseline mode allows for comparing temperatures to a reference point in the scene (for example, to compare a temperature to a blackbody constant). Print to PDF can be used to print graphs, and data can be exported in a text file for analysis in other programs.

A python driver allows users to quickly create their own code to get thermographic data from tCam-Mini via the Wi-Fi interface or via the hardware interface on a Raspberry Pi.

The hardware and firmware design files are open source and available in Dan's Github repository. The firmware is designed to be compiled using Espressif IDF tools, and code can be loaded via the built-in USB serial port. The desktop application and precompiled binary files are also available for quick download at Dan’s website.