New Hikvision Hybrid Thermal Cams

[bp2008]

So far the main caveat of this camera is the thermal sensor recalibration that happens every few minutes. It makes an audible clicking noise that is just a bit louder than a typical IR cut filter, as it moves a physical shutter in and out of place in front of the thermal sensor. More annoying is that the recalibration pauses both video streams (optical and thermal/hybrid) for about a half second. It would have been nice if they let stream #1 (optical) continue uninterrupted, but no such luck.

Speaking of streams, the RTSP stream paths are as follows:

Main stream (optical sensor):
/Streaming/Channels/101

Sub stream (optical sensor):
/Streaming/Channels/102

Main stream (thermal sensor):
/Streaming/Channels/201

Sub stream (thermal sensor):
/Streaming/Channels/202

By default, the thermal image is blended with the optical image to enhance detail. In all the screenshots I've shared so far, I've turned off that blending. Later, I'll share more screenshots and some video clips showing the full range of blending modes and thermal color schemes.

 

[Jessie.slimer]

Looks pretty awesome. I wonder if there is a way to change it so the calibration doesn't happen so often. Also, its a little troubling that there are any defective pixels that are turned off at the factory. I know zero about thermal imaging, so maybe this is common. Looking forward to seeing blended images.

 

[bp2008]

Everything was fine when I unplugged the camera last night. But when I plugged it back in this morning with the intent to record some more video for you guys before installing it outside ... the 5 defective pixels I uncovered the previous night reappeared and the DPC (Defective Pixel Correction) function has entirely stopped working.

Here's a video where I try to re-mark those pixels as defective again, and it has no effect.


Now I get to find out what warranty service is like between JMAC and Hikvision.

 

[bp2008]

Persistence has paid off. I started trying undocumented API commands, and it turns out there is one which appears to fully reset the DPC system and it fixed my camera!

<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"UTF-8\"?>
<DPC><mode>start</mode><dpcMode>auto</dpcMode></DPC>

The secret is to set auto mode. The camera's web interface only ever exposes "manual" mode, and "auto" mode isn't mentioned in API documentation, but it does do something. Once I "started auto mode" with this command, the thermal image turned white and recovered a few seconds later with all of my dead pixels exposed.



But the manual DPC controls started working so I was able to mark them appropriately and it has survived two power cycles of the camera!

The image is nice and clean again.



Yikes.

 

[bp2008]

Now I'll get around to some of the promised snapshots.

The optical module is nothing special. On this -2 model, it is a 1600x1200 resolution and just slightly wider FOV than the thermal module.




Here are various blend mode settings. The alignment is poor up-close, but further away it looks good.



Next up, videos...

 

[bp2008]

For the following video, I've set the noise reduction to "Export" with Space DNR 20 and Time DNR 50. I think the stock setting for "Space DNR" of 50 is too high and reduces perceived detail.



I've set Camera 02 (the stream that includes thermal imagery) to Details Overlay mode which means it blends the thermal and optical images. Two ratios are provided, both are set to 60.




I will now proceed to cycle through all the color palettes.






The camera also supports a small amount of customization when using the White Hot palette.




Please forgive the poor quality; youtube compresses the hell out of low resolution video... here's a raw export of that last one.

View attachment hiktherm902.20201024_153035_1.mp4

 

[bp2008]

Picture-in-picture is available on Camera 01. You can move the thermal overlay around anywhere, but not resize it.



Camera 01 offers 3 resolution choices for its main stream

1600x1200 you've already seen above.

1280x960 is the same FOV but smaller.



1280x720 is just the same thing squished.



Sub stream resolutions for Camera 01 are 704x480 and 352x240.

Camera 02 (thermal / hybrid) offers 5 resolutions for its main stream

1280x720


704x480


640x480


352x240


320x240


Sub stream resolutions for Camera 02 are 320x240, 352x240, and 704x480.

The optimal choice for Camera 02 is 320x240 unless you need a higher resolution frame for compatibility reasons or to force youtube to encode at higher quality or something. Higher resolutions here do not offer more detail.

 

[Shockwave199]

Interesting and thanks for your continued efforts. To be honest, I'm still kinda unnerved by the image in post 19. That was your thumb right?

I'm looking forward to seeing the results outdoors. Keep up the great work!

 

[bp2008]

Yep. My thumb.

 

[Jessie.slimer]

Definitely the right person to have a first crack at this camera.

 

[bp2008]

I got it mounted outside.



I prefer to keep the thermal video as pure thermal (not blended with optical) because that keeps it immune to certain false alarm conditions like changing lighting and shadows.

Here are snapshots demonstrating one of the image settings, DDE (Digital Detail Enhancement).

Set at strength 100, 75, 50, 25, 0, OFF.



Here are some more videos.

Playing with blending modes and digital detail enhancement. Open this video in youtube and see the pinned comment for a list of notable timestamps.

All color palettes again:

 

[CCTVCam]

I'm just wondering what the main use for one of these is? To spot perps who hide in bushes etc and can't be seen by nornal means?

 

[bp2008]

Thermal cams are particularly good for motion detection that doesn't get false-triggers from shadows and lighting changes. Sometimes they are also used to monitor industrial equipment -- checking for overheating for example.

 

[bp2008]

Here are snapshots from the optical module at night. I have a big IR floodlight as well as several other IR cams pointing here. Though it is hard to tell viewing thumbnails, distant stuff does get clearer as the exposure time goes up.

1/500 exposure


1/250 exposure


1/120 exposure


1/60 exposure


1/30 exposure


1/3 exposure


1/1 exposure


And finally, a snapshot from a Dahua full color starlight bullet at 1/3 exposure for comparison.

 

[bp2008]

For this clip, the optical module was set to 1/120 exposure. The thermal module doesn't have exposure settings in the traditional sense.

 

[sebastiantombs]

The first video is showing as "private" Brian.

 

[Mike A.]

View attachment 73365 View attachment 73366 View attachment 73367 View attachment 73368 View attachment 73369 View attachment 73370

^ Surprised it's that good at that distance.

 

[bp2008]

The first video is showing as "private" Brian.

Oops. I hadn't properly finished the publish process on that one. Should be fixed now.

 

[bp2008]

The camera is seeing its first sunrise. As I understand it, this type of thermal sensor (VOx) is "generally" safe to point at the sun.

For uncooled vanadium oxide detectors (VOx microbolometers), the burn-in from the sun is generally non-permanent.

FLIR Cameras - Exposing camera detectors to high energy sources

flir.custhelp.com

 

[Jessie.slimer]

I'm getting this cam set up still. Its pretty neat. One question I had though. Would I need to add the camera twice in BI or clone camera in order to have one feed for optical camera and one feed for thermal only in my BI mobile app?