Human eyes aren’t naturally brilliant in darkness. It’s much easier for things to remain hidden when night falls, or when a building doesn’t have much light within it.
This is exactly why many law enforcement and military organisations use specialist equipment to see in the dark, allowing them to see what might have went unseen without the use of this equipment.
One of devices they use routinely is a thermal imaging camera. These devices see through darkness much better than human eyes ever could, and are an essential tool for tracking people in the dark.
Since thermal cameras operate using infrared radiation rather than conventional light, the ability of the camera is enhanced dramatically over other devices such as night vision. This is because the thermal camera essentially sees the world as a collection of heat signatures, rather than seeing it as visible light like we see with our eyes.
Every object that has molecules within it produces heat as those molecules move, usually factored by the surrounding temperature (e.g. a warm summer’s day heating skin). A thermal camera is able to detect this infrared radiation, and displays heat as a thermal image.
This is an exceptionally useful tool for tracking anything that emits a thermal signature in complete darkness. When using normal night vision devices, it would be perfectly possible to miss someone hiding behind a tree. In comparison, using a thermal image would clearly showcase a thermal image hiding in the trees, allowing the hiding individual to be easily located and captured.
Take a look at this video from FLIR which highlights their law enforcement range:
As you can see on the video, officers are able to easily distinguish criminals in darkened areas by using the capabilities of this thermal imaging camera.
For more information on these cameras go check out our sister site, Tester.co.uk.
