Enhanced Visualizations of Thermographic Data in Process Industry

In this paper, we describe an improved method for visualization of thermographic data in the paper and pulp process industry. We present an application that allows process operators to freely choose how absolute temperatures and time varying changes of thermographic scans should be mapped to colors and/or 3D shapes. Of the possible combinations, we selected two different forms of 3D visualizations and an existing conventional 2D map visualization. We then evaluated these visualization forms with regard to their effectiveness in experimental field studies. The field tests were carried out to measure the operators’ performance in early detection of insulation damages on lime kilns. The results we obtained from the study show that the two new forms of 3D visualization lead to a reduction of the detection times by about two-thirds and one-third, respectively, when compared to the conventional 2D map representation. Since lime kiln monitoring is based on the rather generic method of continuous thermographic imaging, we suggest that these results also hold for the control and surveillance of other processes.