Media Release:
Breakthrough video surveillance software developed in Australia which allows security professionals to track targets from camera to camera through shopping centres, airports, transport networks and city centres is set to be distributed across Australia and New Zealand as the first step in a planned global roll-out.
Adelaide-based Snap Network Surveillance – formed to commercialise leading edge research by the University of Adelaide’s Australian Centre for Visual Technologies – has entered into a distribution partnership with Pacific Communications, the market leading distributor of closed circuit television (CCTV) and integrated internet protocol (IP) systems for the security surveillance market.
Pacific Communications is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hills Holdings Limited and operates as Hills Electronic Security in New Zealand.
Snap Chief Executive Officer, Mr John Laverty, said the partnership had been in the making since early this year, with commercial opportunities confirmed as a result of successful demonstrations of the Snap product, Argus, on the Pacific Communications stand at the Security 2012 Expo held in Sydney in late July.
“Argus gives video surveillance operators the power to take control of large-scale surveillance camera networks,” Mr Laverty said.
“Using advanced computer vision technology, Argus learns which surveillance cameras view overlapping areas and which view areas near each other.
“Our Peripheral Vision feature provides the operator with greater situational awareness, automatically providing all relevant camera views; Video Pursuit allows operators to track targets at least four times faster than current systems; and the Instant Evidence feature speeds the production of multi-camera video by 10 times – a very significant improvement in the efficiency of this routine and tedious task.
“Together, these advances translate into a significant step-change in effective incident management.
“We see very significant opportunities for this leading edge technology in a world increasingly concerned with security issues – and particularly in the US, UK and Europe.”
It is estimated that there are more than 30 million CCTV cameras in the US alone.
The worldwide digital video surveillance market was estimated to be worth $3.6 billion in 2011 and is predicted to rise to $10.7 billion 2016. The market for software to manage these cameras is estimated to be $800 million a year, growing by 25% annually.
