EOTech X320 User Manual - Manual (Page 7)

7
1. Introduction
Thank you for choosing the X320 Thermal Imaging Camera. With
its small size, rugged design, and simplicity, you can now focus on
the job at hand, rather than the camera in your hand.
Before using this camera, please read these instructions carefully,
and retain them for future reference.
Welcome to Infrared
L-3 EOTech has long been a leader in the production and
development of military products based on infrared thermal
imaging. In an effort to make this technology more widely
available, L-3 EOTech's engineers and scientists developed many
unique ways of translating infrared energy into visible imagery.
Now L-3 EOTech is providing affordable thermal imaging
solutions for fire, law enforcement, marine, security, and other
commercial uses.
Infrared energy often referred to as “infrared” or “IR”, is
electromagnetic radiation that travels in a straight line through
space, similar to visible light. Although infrared shares some of the
properties of visible light, its different wavelength has several
unique characteristics. For instance, materials that are opaque to
visible light may be transparent to infrared, and vice–versa. Also,
unlike visible light, which is given off by ordinary objects only at
very high temperatures (e.g. light bulbs), long wavelength infrared
(7–14 µm) is emitted by all objects at ordinary temperatures. This
means infrared is all around us all the time, even in the dark.
Different objects give off varying amounts of infrared, depending
on the temperature of the object.