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Operating Instruction for Thermal Imager
5-8.Emissivity Adjustment
• The correct emissivity value is important to make the most accurate temperature measurement.
• Emissivity of a surface can have a large effect on the apparent temperatures that the Thermal Imager observes.
• Understanding the emissivity of the surface, but may not always, allow you to obtain more accurate temperature
measurements.
Note:
Surfaces with an emissivity of <0.60 make reliable and consistent determination of actual temperature
problematic. The lower the emissivity, the more potential error is associated with the Imager’s temperature
measurement calculations. This is also true even when adjustments to the emissivity and reflected background
adjustments are performed properly.
• Emissivity is set directly as a value or from a list of emissivity values for some common materials.
• The global emissivity displays in LCD Screen as E=x.xx.
• The following table gives typical emissivity of important materials.
Material
Water
Stainless Steel
Aluminum Plate
Asphalt
Concrete
Cast Iron
Rubber
Wood
Brick
Tape
Brass Plate
Human Skin
PVC Plastic
Polycarbonate
Oxidized Copper
Rust
Paint
Soil
Emissivity
0.96
0.14
0.09
0.96
0.97
0.81
0.95
0.85
0.75
0.96
0.06
0.98
0.93
0.80
0.78
0.80
0.90
0.93
