As the technology becomes cheaper and more accessible, video cameras are becoming more and more common. Video footage can be useful for many obvious reasons and can be a useful tool in forensic engineering. Let’s discuss the ability for a forensic engineer to extract information from a video, and how it can be useful in ways that are not always as obvious. Here are some of the ways:
1. Vehicle Speeds. This one is popular today with the abundance of video systems installed in vehicles and is still one of the most useful ways to capture data related to an accident. At Veritech, we can extract very specific information pertaining to an accident if a dashcam is available. Speeds? No problem. It is possible to calculate the speed of the vehicle in which the dashcam is located. Depending on the quality of the video, speeds of other vehicles within the camera view can also be determined.
Truck speed taken from video using reference points (cones).
2. Vehicle accelerations. While more difficult, it is possible to determine vehicle accelerations within a video. This is usually done by finding the change in speed that occurs over the time of the video, and some limitations as to the accuracy of the calculations are to be expected. Nevertheless, it is possible to obtain more advanced vehicle dynamics and accelerations based solely on video.
No matter the vehicle's size, accelerations can be measured using reference points or surveys.
3. Vehicle position. Veritech is experienced in calculating vehicle positions through the use of on-board cameras (dashcams) and stationary cameras. Let say that there is a question of if a vehicle had drifted out of its lane into another lane of traffic. Veritech can calculate the position of the vehicle to determine if, or when, it drifted out of its lane of travel using dashcam footage.
Vehicle position determined using surveillance video of parking lot with full survey.
4. Surveillance cameras. Footage from surveillance cameras often captures subjects such as pedestrians, bicyclists, cars, and other moving objects. While we are often asked to find out speeds of subjects in camera footage, we are also sometimes asked to determine a person’s height based on video footage. This is doable as well, and can be achieved with amazing accuracy depending on the quality of the video.
Subject gait, walking speed, stature, height, and other physical characteristics can be determined using surveillance video analysis.
5. Video based point clouds. While more advanced, it is possible for video footage to be used in generation of point clouds through the concept of multi-view stereopsis. A point cloud is used by a computer program as a representation of three-dimensional object. While video footage is certainly not three-dimensional, computers can be used to generate three-dimensional point clouds based on video footage of an object from different angles.
Veritech is pioneering the use of videos in creating 3-Dimensional point clouds for forensic engineering.
Limitations to the science exist and need to be considered carefully. Veritech is pioneering the science of video analysis and videogrammetry and we are considered industry leaders in the area. Contact us today to learn more about this exciting technology and to see if we can help you with your video.