IBM and Firetide today announced a new project with the City of Chicago Office of Emergency Management and Communications to implement one of the world’s largest video security deployments.
The new system analyzes images in real time 24 hours a day, linking some 3,000 cameras which can zoom close enough to read license plates.
Operation Virtual Shield will capture, monitor and record video for safety applications. A fiber network throughout the downtown Chicago area, ties together hundreds of new surveillance cameras and links thousands of preexisting cameras to the network.
More than 100 private companies are also connecting their cameras to the system. The emergency communications office already has tapped into video cameras in Chicago Transit Authority buses, making them part of its network.
The City’s existing high-tech multi-million dollar command and control center monitors the video and utilizes. The real-time video will provide proactive monitoring with faster response time to emergencies; more effective deployment of emergency responders; and increased travel efficiency through traffic congestion tracking.
An advanced detection and notification systems, using IBM’s Smart Surveillance Solution, will be plugged-in and tuned as necessary to meet new threats.
The system could be programmed to recognize license plates. It could alert emergency officials if the same car or truck circles the Sears Tower three times or if nobody picks up a backpack in Grant Park for, say, 30 seconds. Then the person monitoring the video camera could determine whether police should be sent to check it out, said IBM executive Sam Docknevich.
Firetide’s wireless mesh network is utilized to support the covert and overt video surveillance, as well as traffic control, VoIP communications, and database access applications. IBM is also testing Firetide’s infrastructure to allow first responders access video feeds from their vehicles.
IBM chose Genetec’s Omnicast as the main video management platform for building the Operation Virtual Shield system. It supports virtually any type of analog or digital camera and allows products such as IBM’s Smart Surveillance Solution to be easily integrated into the system.
Firetide’s HotPoint access points and HotPort mesh nodes are often used for video surveillance, Internet access, public safety networks, and temporary networks.
A high-tech camera in lower Manhattan has been secretly monitoring license plates of passing cars in a test of the city’s planned “Ring of Steel” surveillance system. The license plate images are sent wirelessly to a computer system that can automatically scan the plates and compare the numbers and letters against a database.
Consumers could watch the watchers with GigaPan. In conjunction with Charmed Labs, a $300 GigaPan robotic camera mount is capable of capturing multi-gigapixel, explorable panoramas using off-the-shelf, inexpensive consumer digital cameras.
Gigapan and the Gigapan imager are part of the Global Connection Project, which is sponsored by Google, the Carnegie Mellon and NASA.
Google’s Streetview (demo below), also lets you explore neighborhoods at street level - with infinite zoom possibilities.
Google’s Street View (Gallery) and Microsoft’s Photosynth are going head-to-head in this space.
Sony and the University of Alabama in Huntsville are developing a wide-angle gigapixel camera that can image a 10-kilometre-square area from an altitude of 7.5 kilometres with a resolution better than 50 centimetres per pixel. The camera (below) would be able to record images at a rate of 4 frames per second.
Maybe an old snow sled or satellite dish would work. Twenty, 6 Megapixel cameras (at $100 a pop) might make a $2,000 platform for 120 Megapixel images. Panoramic stitching software includes the free GigaPan stitcher, which is said to be easy to use. Other multi-row stitching software includes PTGui, Autopano Pro and Photoshop CS3, which has an Auto-Stitch feature built-in.
Quick somebody, put one On Mt. Saint Helens or along the coast. Check out natural wonders, events, or traffic conditions — real time. Public kiosks with 42″ displays could enable anyone to zoom in.
.gif)
