Quick review of TOPDON thermal infrared camera TC001

topdon_tc001_review.txt

Quick review of TOPDON thermal infrared camera TC001

See https://www.topdon.com/products/tc001

Windows
Either use the proprietary app or follow https://github.com/LeoDJ/P2Pro-Viewer/issues/9#issuecomment-1645982118 to be able to see the data with apps that support any webcams. For an OpenCV sample, see https://github.com/LeoDJ/PyThermalCamera/tree/main .

Using the proprietary app TC001_ToolsSW_Thermal_Imager_V0_69_EN.zip, .mp4 recordings seem in C:\TCView\album (contrary to what the app seems to suggest).
Windows proprietary driver seems based on libusb (maybe similar to freenect2?), but it is possible to change the driver to standard camera, see above.
If needed, maybe obs-studio could also be used to get the proprietary app window so that OpenCV can access its view in realtime (note that OpenCV>=4.8 is necessary to be able to open obs-studio virtual webcam, see https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio/issues/3635 ).


Linux
See https://github.com/LeoDJ/PyThermalCamera/tree/main .
More info on https://github.com/leswright1977/PyThermalCamera , https://hackaday.com/2023/07/11/phone-thermal-cameras-get-open-source-desktop-tools/ , https://www.eevblog.com/forum/thermal-imaging/rasbpi-and-topdon-tc001-(guinea-pig)-tester-requested/?all;PHPSESSID=qkhfg74ni238tcplbft0mfcjfl .


General info
It seems there is a periodic calibration that disturbs the data (stops during about 1 s), maybe also an auto contrast filter or similar, to check in the app the available settings... It does not seem to depend on the driver or OS so probably internal, to see if can be changed with e.g. amcap.exe...

We see a reflection of e.g. the people on a metal cabinet, windows, we might not always see through windows or transparent plastic boxes...
Glasses hide the eyes of people...