Ivmech Mechatronics' PitFusion Gives Your Raspberry Pi a Fused Thermal and Visible Light Camera
A Melexis MLX90640 thermal sensor sits next to a five-megapixel visible-light camera in this sensor-fusion add-on for the Raspberry Pi.
UPDATE (5/19/2025): Ivmech Mechatronics has opened crowdfunding for the PitFusion, its Raspberry Pi-targeted dual-sensor camera system that combines thermal and visible-light imaging in a single device.
The campaign sees the PitFusion up for pre-order at $140 plus shipping, a price which includes the PitFusion board itself, a Raspberry Pi Camera Module visible light camera, and a Melexis MLX90640 temperature-sensing thermal imaging camera; users will have to supply their own Raspberry Pi or compatible single-board computer.
The PitFusion crowdfunding campaign is now live on Crowd Supply, and at the time of writing was already more than halfway to its $4,500 funding goal. All hardware is expected to ship in September this year, Ivmech says.
Original article continues below.
London-based engineering and design firm Ivmech Mechatronics and Innovation has designed a Raspberry Pi accessory that delivers sensor fusion between a thermal imaging sensor and a visible-light camera — merging the two into a single view.
"The PitFusion is a cutting-edge dual-camera module developed for the Raspberry Pi, combining a thermal imaging sensor (MLX90640) and a Raspberry Pi [compatible] camera [module] into a single, compact device," Ivmech Mechatronics explains of its creation. "This innovative module is designed to provide users with the ability to capture both thermal and visual images simultaneously, opening up a wide range of applications in fields such as automation, robotics, security, and environmental monitoring."
Thermal imaging sensors are designed to measure temperatures at a distance — acting like a non-contact thermometer, but rather than taking a single spot measurement capturing readings over a grid and interpreting them as the familiar "thermal vision" imagery where, using a standard "iron" color scheme, hot things glow red, yellow, or white, and cold things are blue or black. A visible-light camera, similarly, captures a grid of light and color measurements that can be viewed as an image — and the PitFusion works to combine the two.
The idea of blending thermal imaging with visible-light imaging isn't new: plenty of commercial thermal cameras do the same, typically as a way to add detail to the often low-resolution thermal view. The PitFusion, though, is designed for use with the Raspberry Pi family of single-board computers — and targets those looking to play with thermal fusion imagery on a budget.
The device is based on a five megapixel visible-light camera capable of capturing imagery at a resolution of up to 2,592×1,944. Next to the visible-light camera is the thermal sensor, a Melexis MLX90640 — chosen for its low cost and with a somewhat limited resolution of 32×24 for 768 total readings updating at 32Hz. The low-resolution thermal data is streamed to the Raspberry Pi over the I2C bus, then scaled up to match the resolution of the MIPI Camera Serial Interface (CSI)-connected visible-light camera — displaying a fusion of the two.
Ivmech Mechatronics is taking orders for the PitFusion on its website at $120.10 plus shipping, a price that reflects the low resolution of the thermal sensor; the company has also published source code Python-powered supporting software on GitHub under the reciprocal GNU General Public License 3, with the promise that schematics and board layouts files will follow in due course.
