Full-length TFT display coupled with a thermal imaging camera (very expensive i think), next to the front door or in the bedroom, so you can check an image of yourself to see how well-insulated (or poorly if it's a hot day) you are before you go outside. Alternatively, just a digital camera which plugs into a computer and does this, or one on a mobile/cellphone.
-- nineteenthly, Feb 18 2009

Thermal Imaging Cameras http://www.instruma...kBfvbA&PriceLevel=6
Pretty Pricey [csea, Feb 18 2009]

More Thermal Imaging Cameras http://www.x20.org/thermal/
Note the cool handheld "RAZ-IR"; I want one! [csea, Feb 18 2009]

Yes. +
-- csea, Feb 18 2009


I was wondering though, what if you just had a little pinhole, i.e. teeny tiny camera, which scanned your body for heat? Would that make it cheaper? There are heat-sensitive liquid crystals, after all. Could temperature be measured by passing light through a layer of heat-sensitive liquid crystal?
Edit: It does indeed look, er, "cool" (probably should find a word) but no price visible from here implies high price i think. Either that or that i live in Europe and they can't sell me it.
-- nineteenthly, Feb 18 2009


Couldn't you get clever with ordinary pyroelectric motion detectors and some IR filters? Maybe a spinning prism, and make yourself a simple thermal imager.
-- coprocephalous, Feb 18 2009


Maybe. What i'm trying to work out is what makes the normal cameras so expensive. That looks like it'd work, but would it be cheaper? Is it a question merely of economies of scale?
-- nineteenthly, Feb 18 2009


[+] nice idea; however I suspect that all you need is the overall IR figure - the actual distribution is probably not important. If you are letting out heat, it doesn't really matter where it is escaping. That would really cut down the costs involved. (I personally find that stepping out of the door quickly tells me if I am under-wrapped for the cold).
-- vincevincevince, Feb 18 2009


//what makes the normal cameras so expensive//
Germanium optics?
-- coprocephalous, Feb 18 2009


Hah! You've just shown why the hotties in the old sci-fi flicks always wore aluminum foil!
-- lurch, Feb 18 2009


Yes, that'd be really good.
[coprocephalus], i read earlier that something can be done with silicon, but since i don't know how they work anyway, that doesn't help.
On poking about a bit, it looks like the reason it can be expensive is that the sensors have to be cooled cryogenically. There's a new cheaper method using something called a microbolometer, which doesn't need cooling.
[vvv], i think it might matter where. For instance, i'd prefer my feet to be cold than my hands.
-- nineteenthly, Feb 18 2009


All CCDs see in the infrared, so I think all you'd need is a large IR focused lens covered by a IR filter and you'd be off to the races. A couple of years ago I think Sony came out with a nightvision camcorder and there was a huge hubub (sp.?) about the ability of the camera to see really well in IR. To the point of being able to see the shape of the body thru clothes. It wasn't X-ray specs but good enough to sell out IR filters and that model of camcorder all across America.
-- MisterQED, Feb 18 2009


//All CCDs see in the infrared// Only the near infrared; they don't detect wavelengths as long as those produsec by body heat.
-- spidermother, Feb 19 2009


[21 Quest], i see you've done that and it doesn't bother me in the slightest. That's fine. We all collaborate on here after all, don't we?
-- nineteenthly, Feb 19 2009



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