Software Speeds up Inspections and Reporting in Thermal Imaging

PFE Limited uses thermal imaging for mechanical and electrical inspections and testing of industrial processes. For furnace inspections, the company uses a handheld camera from the Flir Exx series.

The Flir Route Creator plug-in allows pre-planned routes for inspections to be created in Flir Thermal Studio. The routes can be downloaded to any Flir thermal imaging camera equipped with the Flir Inspection Route software and are executed directly on the camera. This ensures that no assets or inspection areas are missed. For reporting and analysis, the Route Creator generates a file in which the images are already automatically assigned to the respective object. The images can be post-processed in the batch.

"Especially with furnace inspections, post-processing is often required," says Jake Ford, Reliability & Mechanical Engineer at PFE, "Hot spots are a natural part of a furnace, so not every hot spot is problematic. This often means that we have to edit an image or delineate or annotate the area of interest. Now we can display the images in FLIR's UltraMax mode, rotate them or draw a square around them – all in one batch process."