Interpreting Infared Thermography

Technical improvements in non-invasive evaluation methods of infrared thermography has resulted in more effective and affordable hardware as well as more versatile software. These technological advances are making infrared thermography more accessible to preservationists and conservationists when conducting historic building investigations, evaluations and documentations. The main barrier to using this potentially very useful method is the absence of a methodology for meaningful interpretation of the raw data obtained with infrared thermography. This overwhelming barrier can be overcome only by correlating the detailed physical characteristics of model architectural structures in various environments with the data obtained from them by means of infrared thermography. The work done in this project will establish this correlation and offer it in the form of a library of calibrated data for the immediate and meaningful application of infrared thermography to problems of architectural restoration, conservation and preservation.