The other night I walked out into the family room with the FLIR and could see the imprints on the couch where both Connie and I had been sitting. Pretty incredible stuff. And this is a cheap hobby grade unit. No telling what the military has now at their disposal.
Heck, you can even see footprints on the ground and the temperature differential is enough. But I'm guessing it is more effective in the Winter than in the Summer months. One thing I have learned just messing around with this little unit, is that it is very difficult to hide from thermal imaging. Even hiding behind something doesn't work too well, because the heat signature can be seen right through a lot of materials, or your heat makes the surroundings warmer too. I was watching a video where a guy found a rodent's nest UNDERGROUND using a thermal imager. And yes, you can see stuff through walls, like hot water pipes.
But I am still puzzled about some things concerning this technology. The other day I was outside and stood in front of the storm door on my front porch figuring I would see if I could tell if much cold air from the AC inside was leaking through the doors. Well, the image I got really puzzled me. I could see the thermal image of my reflection on that glass. And I certainly was not close enough to the door to have any of my body heat affecting it. I have heard that you can't use a thermal imager through a window, because it will only detect the heat signature of the glass itself, and nothing on the other side of it. So how did my reflection get captured as a thermal image? I would have thought that my reflection wouldn't have registered at all? That only the heat of the actual glass would have been in the image.
