Seek Thermal SDK Quick Start

Guide
Table of Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Examples. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Step 1: Unplug camera. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Step 2: Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Installation steps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Linux installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Debian installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Manual installation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Windows installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Manual installation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Step 3: Connecting the Hardware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Step 4: Micro Core Pairing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Step 5: Running the Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Manually installed SDK. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Debian installed SDK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Next Steps… . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Introduction
The Seek Thermal SDK allows developers to interface with Seek Thermal devices easily, flexibly,
and efficiently. This document gives the details for installing the SDK on your host system and
getting the prebuilt examples up and running with our thermal camera cores.

Examples
Jump in by running any of the SDK’s prebuilt example applications. All examples work on USB
based camera cores. This section describes the examples and the next five sections detail the exact
steps to run any example on your host.

Table 1. Examples

Name Description

seekcamera-sdl Demonstrates how to use the SDK to render ARGB frames. Supports
multiple cameras.

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Name Description

seekcamera-simple Demonstrates how to use the SDK to log thermography data to a CSV.
Supports multiple cameras.

seekcamera-probe Demonstrates how to use the SDK to probe the camera connection
information. Supports multiple cameras.

seekcamera-fw-update Demonstrates how to use the SDK to update firmware on the device.
Supports single camera.

seekcamera-fsc Demonstrates how to use the SDK to store and delete flat scene
corrections (FSC). Supports USB and SPI. Supports single camera.

Along with prebuilt examples, the SDK includes the source code and makefiles to
NOTE
rebuild the examples. Please refer to Next Steps… for more details.

Step 1: Unplug camera

• First make sure the Seek Thermal camera is not connected to the host device via USB.

Step 2: Installation
The next step is to install the SDK on your host device.

Please refer to the README to make sure you have a supported host architecture.
NOTE Please refer to Determine Architecture if you need help with determining your
architecture.

Installation steps
Linux installation

The recommended method of installing and upgrading the SDK on Linux varies depending on the
OS flavor. For Debian based systems (e.g. Raspberry Pi 3), the recommended installation method is
via a .deb package. For other systems, the recommended installation method is manual.

Debian installation

• Unzip the SDK download.

• Install the .deb by using the command line and OS package manager. For example, here is the
command when using a Rasberry Pi:
<SDK>$ sudo apt-get install ./seekthermal-sdk-dev-{version}_armhf.deb

• Reboot or reload the udev rules if this is the first time this version of the SDK has been installed.
<SDK>$ sudo udevadm control --reload

NOTE The SDK can be uninstalled via apt.

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Manual installation

• Unzip the SDK download

• Install SDL support.

<SDK>$ sudo apt-get install libsdl2-dev

• From the root of the SDK, determine which architecture you need and move into that directory.
<SDK>$ cd <arch>

• Copy the libraries for the appropriate build architecture to the host system.
<SDK/arch>$ sudo cp lib/libseekcamera.so /usr/local/lib
<SDK/arch>$ sudo cp lib/libseekcamera.so.4.3 /usr/local/lib

• Copy the headers to the host system.

<SDK/arch>$ sudo cp -r include/* /usr/local/include

• Install the driver udev rules.

<SDK/arch>$ sudo cp driver/udev/10-seekthermal.rules /etc/udev/rules.d

• Reboot or reload the udev rules if this is the first time this version of the SDK has been installed.
<SDK>$ sudo udevadm control --reload

• Change the permissions of the pre-built sample application.

<SDK/arch>$ sudo chmod u+x bin/*

Windows installation

Manual installation

• Unzip the SDK download.

• Install the driver by right click <SDK>\x64-windows\driver\seekusb.inf and selecting "Install".

After clicking "Install", you will see a Windows Security prompt with the Publisher
printed as "Seek Thermal Inc". Select Install to continue. The prompt should look
similar to this.

NOTE

If you are installing to a Windows Tablet, you may see a message asking if you want
to allow INF Default Install. The Verified publisher is Microsoft Windows and you
can select 'Show more details' to view the publisher’s certificate. Click 'Yes'.

Step 3: Connecting the Hardware

• Connect the USB cable to the Starter Kit and your host device.

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Step 4: Micro Core Pairing
Micro Core devices must be paired with the host before some of the the prebuilt examples can
execute successfully. The seekcamera-sdl example has pairing automatically built in. Please run the
seekcamera-sdl example first in step 5.

Step 5: Running the Examples

Manually installed SDK
• From the command line, run any of the pre-built examples in <SDK/arch>/bin.

Debian installed SDK

• The pre-built examples are placed in /usr/bin by the Debian installation. Assuming this is in
your path, you can just run examples from the command line.

Next Steps…
• Rebuilding the SDK examples and your own applications: please refer to the SDK C
Programming Guide for more details.

• Datasheets, CAD drawings, Application Notes, Support Tickets, Forums, etc.:

https://developer.thermal.com