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Image processing is the cases — reducing infrastruckey for allowing smart therture needs such as poles, camal cameras to reach the bling and power that would be level of detection accuracy required with a visible camera necessary for building an solution. efective managed service Tey can run over wireless, business. When video further reducing infrastrucanalytics are placed inside ture costs. And smart thermal a camera, and a high degree camera prices themselves of video processing is used have been dropping signifto analyze the raw video as it cantly in recent years, and are comes of the imager, every now available at an MSRP video frame at full resoluas low as $10/foot, making tion is available for the video the most accurate perimeter content analysis. security technology compaSmart thermal cameras equipped with GPS-based video analytics Tis approach is conrable in price to traditional can be mounted onto buildings and existing infrastructure, lessening trasted with older solutions visible cameras with analytics, the cost and complexity of bringing power and communications to a where the video content fence sensors or buried cable perimeter. analysis was performed systems. outside of the camera, on a server or separate encoder. Further economic drivers for deploying thermal imaging Te drawback to this approach is that once video has been include new mounting capabilities made possible through compressed and sent over the network to a back-end device GPS-based video analytics. Smart cameras that use such for analysis, there is not enough video detail available to "geo-registration" can be mounted onto buildings and distinguish relevant motion such as a human intruder from existing infrastructure, allowing the operator to draw deirrelevant motion such as trash or trees blowing in the wind. tection zones that will ignore movement on the other side Te result was an overabundance of nuisance alarms caused of a fence or demarcation, such as along a highway where by nonsecurity-related motion. For this reason, today's passing cars should be ignored. Mounting cameras on smart cameras that use onboard image processing are able existing infrastructure such as buildings removes the cost to achieve the results required for managed security. and complexity of bringing power and communications to Image processing in today's smart cameras is also used the perimeter. to present a very clear, detailed thermal image even in lowGeo-registration can also be used to automatically steer contrast situations such as fog, rain and humidity, while pan/tilt/zoom (p/t/z) cameras to zoom and follow a detected overcoming "white-out" problems once caused by bright target for up close inspection. Tis is particularly important sun. Objects that once blended into the background due when large outdoor areas are under security management, to outdoor conditions are now revealed, details are clearer where trying to manually locate a detected alarm with a at greater ranges, and the results are particularly striking p/t/z camera — especially over large outdoor areas — can be in hot weather during the daytime. Termal cameras now like fnding a needle in a haystack. By automatically tracking provide detail approaching a black-and-white video instead targets in this manner, security personnel gain important of the blurrier images once associated with the technology. information about the nature of the threat and can quickly Most important for managed services, not only do smart and accurately formulate an appropriate response, even thermal cameras deliver accurate detection, they also when protecting large outdoor perimeters. combine 24-hour video verifcation into a single system. Smart thermal cameras can also be easily deployed in Such verifcation is needed to give credibility and priority to managed service applications beyond security, looking at frst responders. Rather than having to purchase, deploy and behaviors that can increase a company's operational efintegrate two disparate systems for detection and for video, ciency. For instance, a company could use a thermal camera smart thermal cameras utilize a single system to accomplish to determine if there is a leak at a refnery or if transformers both. Tis is clearly a more cost-efective strategy for instalare overheating at a power station, or to monitor storage tank lation, maintenance and use. levels. Te possibilities for thermal cameras extend to highway safety, measuring parking area occupancy, measuring the volume of trafc on a road, or automatically determining ECONOMIC FACTORS TO CONSIDER if a car is driving the wrong way on an onramp or road. Smart thermal cameras have more than fulf lled expectaTermal imaging is a powerful new tool to secure outdoor tions for economic advantages in managed outdoor applicaassets. Integrators who ofer the technology as a managed tions. Conventional wisdom would leave one to believe that service will fnd a business model that is viable, lasting and other sensing solutions, such as visible cameras, would be the least costly approach. Te reality is that thermal cameras economically favorable, while meeting the critical security can cover greater distances — more than 600 meters in some needs of their customers. SEPTEMBER 2013 / SECURITYSALES.COM / 149