Meridian Awards 2012

Radio Engineering Industries, Inc. (REI) is a vertically integrated manufacturing corporation located in Omaha, Nebraska. REI designs and manufactures audio and video electronics for the transportation industry. REls BUS-WATCH(R) mobile surveillance systems have been providing safety and security for school buses and transit vehicles for over 15 years.

REls newest line of Mobile Digital Video Recorders (MDVRs), the Rx001 Series, was designed to allow the transit operators to have a customized video viewing and archiving application that allows them to be able to see, hear, and analyze what was happening on and with the vehicle during an event.

REls UveView & PlayBack PC Software application was developed to allow the user to select from a variety of video sources and connectivity solutions, as well as select a year, month, date, and time of video clips to be able to view and analyze. The standard video file operating controls (play, reverse, pause, fast-forward, etc.) can be utilized to find video events that then can be archived, converted to other file formats, and easily shared with others.

We also had to take much more of an individual customer-centric approach to each mapping customer than a regular mass-manufacturing facility would normally take. We quickly realized that the amount of time that our application would take to initialize depended upon the amount of high-resolution map information that we were trying to display. By making a custom map application for each customer, we were able to identify what parts of the world that the vehicles would be reasonably expected to be in, and limit the amount of high-resolution map data that we needed to process. We then additionally added underlying low resolution maps of the entire continent so that we could assure that the vehicle would then never leave the map.

Once the base software application had been developed, GPS based mapping features were next on the list. Our BUS-WATCH(R) mobile surveillance systems have had passive GPS devices available for multiple generations for embedding of the longitude, latitude, speed, heading, and date & time information into the I-Frames of the Mpeg4 video files. In 2008, the REI Surveillance Development Team set about the daunting task of researching map data sets and providers. After a thorough search of the available technologies, REI selected Pitney Bowes Maplnfo as the data set and graphical engine of choice. It took our team over 6 months of development to create a truly novel, powerful, and user-friendly application that allows the customer to view a map tracking the vehicles movements in one of the extra camera viewing windows.

REls BUS-TRACKER(TM) GPS based audio/video mapping application, is different from other applications because the map is interactive and directly linked to the video. As the vehicle travels around the city, we display the route that bus will travel in green, and the route of where the vehicle had been, the breadcrumb trail, in red. The user can select anywhere along the route with the mouse and the video goes directly to that point and begins to play. Along the route, we display icons that correspond to a variety of vehicle sensor connections such as brakes, turn signals, doors, stop arm, 8-way flashers, etc. Additionally, panic button alerts, excessive speeds, and accelerometer thresholds can also be displayed. We developed a filter function to go with the route icons so that the user can select which of the vehicle sensors are being displayed. We also developed filter algorithms for the route and breadcrumb trail. The map interactivity goes beyond linking to the video - with zoom and pan functions, as well as an optional function to keep the map centered on the vehicle as it moves around its route.

One of the biggest challenges that we had to face with the development of the BUS-TRACKER(TM) application was the speed performance of the user experience. A lot of our school district customers use less than top-of-the-line computers, and processor speeds and memory sizes are usually not that great. In order to display up to eight channels of smooth video and audio while trying to build the map, center it on the vehicle, and build the route, we had to very carefully order the timing of the display algorithms. With creative use of end user (Please Wait While ... ) messages, we were able to create an application that does not appear to choke up and stutter while all the intensive background processing was being performed.

The end result of the research and development of this mapping application greatly increased the value of the base audio/video application and the customers user experience. Using the Pitney Bowes Maplnfo data sets and graphics engines allowed us to create an interactive graphical display of the vehicles position, where it had been, and where it was going.

Future mapping application development projects include UveView Mapping, Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL), all day mapping (metadata master files), and server based floating map licenses.