thermalUV

ThermalUV is a term used to describe a multimodal imaging approach that combines thermal infrared imaging with ultraviolet imaging to capture complementary information about a scene or material. The concept is used across research and industry to enhance analysis by linking temperature patterns with surface chemistry or fluorescence signals. Because there is no single standardized definition, the term may be used differently across projects or vendors, sometimes as a brand name or project label.

In typical implementations, thermalUV systems employ one or more infrared cameras to record emitted heat (often in the short-, mid-, or long-wave infrared bands) alongside a UV camera or spectrometer sensitive to near-UV or deep-UV wavelengths. Illumination for UV imaging may be provided by UV LEDs, mercury lamps, or other sources. Data are captured either simultaneously with synchronized triggering or in rapid sequence, followed by co-registration to align images and then fused to highlight correlations such as heat anomalies paired with surface features or fluorescence signals.

Applications include building diagnostics (insulation defects, moisture, thermal bridging revealed together with surface contaminants), industrial inspection (electronics, manufacturing defects), material science (surface chemistry mapping), forensics (trace evidence and document analysis), and art conservation. The main advantages are richer contextual information and improved defect detection, while limitations include higher system cost, calibration and alignment challenges, differing spatial resolutions, and the need for careful interpretation of UV-induced signals.

As a field, thermalUV remains largely a descriptive term rather than a standardized methodology, with ongoing work in sensor fusion, calibration techniques, and user workflows to enable robust cross-modality analysis.