SLS Camera Explanation/Review

[Doogie128]

So I decided to look into an SLS camera. How do they work? First, It illuminates the area with infrared light. Then it has an IR sensor (basically it sees the IR light that bounces off of objects. That last sentence is important. The sensor detects the IR light reflected off of objects. IR reflects off of objects that have a solid surface. See the problem? The software could be adapted to use a passive IR device to see what IR an object is radiating, which is how IR Thermography works. IR = Heat, Heat RADIATES from objects, and will reflect off of shiny surfaces. It can not see thru GLASS, it may detect heat thru some materials if they have enough conductivity. Using an IR Thermgraphy device with enough sensitivity might be able to detect the difference in the IR from typical objects and an ghost if your scanning a surface that is consistent and you see and area where the temperature reads different that the rest of the surface. That with the software that looks for shapes may well show you the interference of the Ghost in the IR thats radiating from a surface. Looking at the Ghost hunting SLS cameras that are selling for $300 range, they are not using IR Thermography. I seen it first hand on a ghost hunting show where the SLS picked up an "Anomaly" that was roughly human shape. OF course where it saw the Anomaly was on the front of a Portrait that was sitting on an easel on display at a museum. The top of the easel extended beyond the portrait so that became the head, the portrait was wider than the easel and that became the shoulders, and the legs of the easel became the legs of the Anomaly. So could one be made that would have a real chance to see a "spirit"? Yes, I already mentioned IR Thermography, and theres also UV spectrum which you may see the interference patterns cause by the "spirit" in the UV spectrum. There other ways to make energy fields visible through instrumentation, but I have never seen on in multiple seasons of ghost hunting shows.

Durel Hauser EET/CMPET

 

[Lynne]

This sounds like a great tool for ghost hunting.

 

[GoneWestUtah]

You're overthinking it, Doogie.

The SLS camera projects a grid of thousands of infrared dots. Reflections are run through an algorithm which looks for humanoid shapes among the reflections. Infrared was chosen merely because it lies outside of human vision. Remember that these cameras were originally developed for just tracking people and incorporating their movements into video games or workout routines, and a visible dot grid would be distracting to the human "players". Imaging thermography is not used, the camera is only sensing intensity (flux) levels of the reflections and not deducing shapes according to temperature differences in the returned signal. Only intensity and departure from the grid due to optical distortion.

There are several engineers who are working on various imaging ideas that work in different parts of the spectrum, but are only now showing up on the various TV shows. Not all these gizmos are mass-produced. If you have an idea for a prototype and can build a working model, I would be thrilled to test it in the field for you.

We have been testing full spectrum and near-UV imaging during the winter months, will continue with it as the weather warms and we get into more venues. It was a fairly slow winter from an investigative standpoint.