Human eyes aren’t really that brilliant in the dark. It takes us a good while to adapt to changes in light conditions, and even when our eyes are getting as much light as possible, things can still stay hidden in the darkness, whereas in daytime they might be spotted.
Our severe lack of good normal night vision has led humans to develop solutions for seeing through the darkness. Primarily used in military, security and law enforcement, night vision techniques are used to allow an individual to effectively see in the dark, allowing operations to be completed even in poor lighting conditions.
There’s a bit of a catch with night vision though. Although it does effectively illuminate areas, nightvision isn’t as effective a tool for seeing individuals as thermal imaging, particularly because night vision cameras, goggles etc are limited by what they can directly see.
In comparison, a thermal imaging camera can be used to effectively ‘see’ through different kinds of material and pick out thermal signatures of humans/other hot objects that may be hidden. Since a thermal camera uses an entirely different spectrum that human eyes can’t see (detecting infrared radiation) it is able to penetrate certain objects.
Such examples would include using thermal cameras within woodland areas. If a criminal was being chased by the police and was hiding out amidst some foliage, regular night vision probably wouldn’t be able to detect the perpetrator. Thermal imaging cameras would be able to find the criminal because it would be able to see his thermal signature hidden amongst the plants.
The thermal camera installation in night-time viewing is used more commonly in security installations. Thanks to the ability of the camera to see through complete darkness without a light source, as well the ability to see through smoke, fog and rain, thermal CCTV cameras are extremely effective at locating and tracking individuals who are in areas they shouldn’t be.
