Analysing infrared images, and reporting the results of infrared inspections to colleagues or clients, are two important tasks for any thermographer. To help with this, Flir have introduced ThermaCAM Reporter 8. This software, which is available for almost all of our infrared cameras, allows you to easily create comprehensive and professional multi-page reports.

Having been completely reworked and rewritten from scratch, ThermaCAM Reporter 8 offers many advancements over previous versions. In addition to improved performance and stability, as well as a thorough refresh of the interface, a number of new features have also been added.

These include, for example, 'trending' (which helps to predict when a component may fail) and 'image fusion' (enabling the user to blend digital photographs and infrared images together, making interpretation even easier). Another of these new inclusions is a front-end called 'ThermaCAM Center'. When using ThermaCAM Reporter 8, you should consider this to be your starting point, as it provides access to common tasks at the click of a button.

Once we've created our basic report (or, if you prefer, you can start with a blank page), Microsoft Word will open up and display our work-in-progress. At this point, the true flexibility of ThermaCAM Reporter 8 is realised since we can make full use of the popular features found in Microsoft Word (e.g. style and layout options, file and print features, built-in spell checker, etc).

We also have access (via drop-down and pop-up menus, floating toolbars and a handy task pane) to the tools we need to actually work with and analyse our infrared images directly from within Microsoft Word. For example: by simply click on an infrared image in our report, a toolbar appears which allows us to add additional spots, draw area boxes, create isotherms, etc - much like we can in ThermaCAM QuickReport.

ThermaCAM Reporter 8 also allows us to create markers on the infrared image (to indicate points of interest) and create tables populated with information extracted from the images or 'objects' (e.g. spots, area boxes, etc) we add. These tables can be position anywhere in the report, and the actual contents can be re-ordered and remembered for future use. Charts and graphs can also be added with a minimum of effort to visually display changes in temperature along a series of points.

When we're finished our report, we can then make use of Microsoft Word's extensive save and print options, incorporate our report into another document, e-mail or fax the report to a colleague (if your the is set-up accordingly) or convert the document into a PDF for sharing.