PSIMarch2018

chance of identifying a person if they are caught
on camera.
And as a footnote, just to dispel a myth,
thermal cameras are not used in hostage
situations to check the number and position of
people inside a building. Now you now.
Video smoke/fire detection
Video smoke detection cameras are an interesting
option in this market as they often are, in fact,
standard cameras with built-in flame, smoke and
motion detector capabilities to identify and
analyse smoke at the start of a fire. This enables
users, located on site or remotely, to raise the
alert and take appropriate action earlier than
detection systems that require the physical
contact of smoke for activation.
Fire/smoke detection cameras are particularly
useful in cavernous buildings such as tunnels or
large lobby areas which present a tricky problem
for fire and security planners. The VSD system
works by detecting smoke patterns as well as
changes in brightness, contrast, shape, motion,
colour matching, content and loss that could
indicate the early stages of a fire. Visual
verification, on or off site, can determine if the
situation warrants further action.
There are a number of companies developing
VSD solutions including Xtralis, Fike and FireVu as
the appeal of the earliest possible warning of a
fire is a strong one. Axis has also entered this
market with a partnership with Araani, the
developers of SmokeCathcer software. The
combined ability to monitor flame, smoke and
movement in one unit raises the alarm very
quickly and reportedly make it considerably easier
to trace the cause of the fire.
ANPR
We all know about the use of Automatic Number
Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras on the roads,
but the technology is older than you might think.
It was actually developed by police scientists in
the 70s and originally trialled on the A1 and
Dartford crossing.
The public occasionally confuse ANPR cameras
with the systems that use radar beams to measure
the speed of a vehicle. The confusion may have
arisen because it has become increasingly
common to combine ANPR with radar-based
speed cameras in point-to-point systems.
The technology works by utilising the same
kind of software that is used to read documents
on an office scanner. Optical Character
Recognition (OCR) facilitates the electronic
conversion of text and if required can be linked to
a vehicle database for the control of vehicles
around a site.
Just as the image quality of CCTV cameras has
got rapidly higher so has the processing speed of
ANPR software. This is no more made obvious by
the fact that one of the original sites for ANPR, the
Dartford river crossing, switched to an entirely
ANPR system for its toll collection. With an
average 130,000 vehicles per day using the bridge
and tunnel this is a clear indication of the speed at
which the latest cameras can process information.
If the busiest toll point in the UK can operate
ANPR then no other application should be a
problem for installers.
Conclusion
Specialised cameras are not always about the
software capabilities of the units and how the unit
itself has been developed to get the best out of
the programming – other specialised cameras
have physical capabilities enabled by the use of
motors, housings to track targets and withstand
harsh environments and in the case of drones,
enable cameras to fly. Hardware improvements
such as better infra-red are widening the scope of
what standard cameras can do, but a specialised
camera is dedicated to getting the best possible
result for a specific duty and is cited in the correct
position for this.
As previously stated the software side of
technology development is probably the main
growth area as opposed to that of continuing to
increase the resolution of the cameras, but with
any increased resolution comes more data and
more data does tend to lend itself to additional
business intelligence uses. The use of security
systems for non-security purposes is another one
of the main trends we are seeing today and the
use of specialised cameras and analytics can
provide plenty of information in this area as well.
Araani’s SmokeCatcher on Axis
cameras is ideal for use in tall
buildings or large indoor spaces
where smoke might never reach a
traditional smoke detector
With any increased resolution comes more data
and more data does tend to lend itself to
additional business intelligence uses
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