There are other imaging methods that can incorporate thermography.  Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) can be sensitized to thermal measures that can be made in 3D and penetrate tissue that is optically opaque.  

Your project sounds more like an surface scanning technique with an image fusion component.  If that is your goal, many papers have outlined how to incorporate two different wavelength images with different resolutions.

I saw some information during an undergraduate research project about 45 years ago on an application of liquid crystals.  I don't remember the details well, but will relate what I think they were.

 The method described used cholesteric liquid crystals either in a suspension / solution or suspended in an encapsulated form.  As I remember the description, the surface was prepared with a coating made with a carbon black suspension or similar that was allowed to dry.  The surface was then coated with the liquid crystals and allowed to equilibrate.  This then would allow visual inspection of the thermal pattern and conventional photography.  

As you can see, this is a much longer procedure than using a thermal camera.  It also suffers from being a contact method that will affect the surface temperatures, possibly to the ultimate invalidation of the results.  

While often expensive, a thermal camera would be a better choice.  That's especially true for the currently available technology, as compared to the time frame I am referencing.  

If I understand your question correctly, there are several attempts to commercialize this sort of device.  (e.g., http://www.firstsensemedical.com/index.php).  

If you are looking for non-thermal imaging tools, you might want to take a look at http://modulatedimaging.com/.