TrafficSurvey – Video post-processing platform
You probably remember the recording in Venice: Blimp recording in Venice, Recording in Venice in detail. We have obtained permission to share some of the results, so we can show you what can DataFromSky do for you, too!
The speed profiles for both areas were extracted.
At a glance, one can see what speeds belong to which path through the crossroads. It is also plainly visible which trajectories belong to slow and which to speedy drivers. In this case, the total area captured and analyzed is too small to show bigger changes in speeds, though.
Density of trajectories corresponds to area usage. One can thus estimate how much of the road’s width is actually used by passing vehicles, and where the wear of roadway is most intensive.
DataFromSky can detect situations where vehicles become too close, or have to slow down to let each other pass. This is a visualization of these events’ spatial distribution. You can easily see that there is a single point for the T-intersection and estimate from the pattern at roundabout that its southern leg is far less used.
Deflection angle denotes the part of road which requires circular movement. Radius describes the size of that circle. Both can relate either to the shape of road, or actual trajectory used by vehicles.
DataFromSky provides real vehicle trajectories, so actual deflection angles and radii can be measured. These depend on the combination of entry and exit points, so it’s natural to split the trajectories into groups. Again, with DataFromSky you are not left wishing for features.
Last but not least, the trajectory data from DataFromSky is exactly what you need to validate design of the road. Whatever the design process, verifications, and modelling tell you before, here you get real data about the situation.
Pictures used in this post are only illustrative and do not match the text perfectly. All trajectories are visualized, instead of particular groups.
Read moreWe are pleased to announce our exciting new partnerships with UAV640, ATEC-3D, Airpixa, and Telink to distribute DataFromSky solution within European Union. Welcome on our board!
UAV640 is a French company based in Bayonne. The tagline on their website, “drone and dirigible services for industry“, is a very brief way of describing what they do.
UAV640 has a number of rotary wing drones, two independently manoeuvrable miniature airships for larger payloads, and a tethered baloon. The wide range of types is ideal for traffic monitoring purposes, providing hardware for both shorter and longer studies.
Apart from deploying a diverse fleet of aerial vehicles, UAV640 has a training centre for UAV operators and a lab.
ATEC-3D is a British UAV operator. Currently, their focus is on aerial photography, mine surveying, inspections and environmental usage. We hope to work together on traffic analysis in future, too!
Airpixa is a British UAV operator. From their site: AirPixa specialises in photography and engaging corporate video productions with a special emphasis on aerial work.
Again, we are looking forward to working together on traffic analysis…
Telink is a Czech company providing sales, repairs and renting of UAVs.
An article about us appeared in Czech e-magazine E15.cz. This is a result of a visit by Jan Sedlák a few weeks earlier. E15.cz focuses on IT commerce and is part of portfolio of Mladá fronta, one of the biggest publishing houses in Czech republic. Needless to say, we are pleased to be covered by them!
The article itself mostly just skims on the surface of DataFromSky as a solution, as is to be expected from an article of this length. You can learn something about the business situation of RCE Systems, our company, though.
You have already read about the recording in Venice. Now that the work is finished, we can share a closer look at the whole process.
The surveys were done near Jesolo – a famous seaside resort known for its abundant holiday facilities and a 15-kilometre (9 mi) beach called Lido di Jesolo. At the height of its touristic life, Jesolo hosts 6 million tourists per year. Traffic data in the area are fundamental.
ESSEOTTO Engineering was interested in a deep analysis in the field of road safety and road traffic on rural roads in Province of Venice. This first test concentrated on various types of intersections: T-intersection and a small roundabout. They didn’t want to only survey traffic (counting and classification) but also many other parameters such as: speeds, acceleration, time, distance and other parameters fundamental for road safety. Only DataFromSky is capable of helping them – there is no other way to collect all of this data comprehensively.
Let’s take a look at the places of recording.
The first intersection is a typical Italian compact roundabout in front of the urban area. Here, interactions with other type of road users than just cars can take place. Since the speeds are lower than at other types of intersections, in this case the objects of study were roundabout angle deviation and trajectories arising from interaction with pedestrians.
The second is a typical T-intersection between two rural roads: a primary road and a secondary road with a stop signal. The main issues are the speeds on the primary road and the conflict points on turn-left manoeuvres from primary road.
A date was selected and the engineers from TAU could finally come and do their thing – fly their blimp and record a video of the traffic. The recording was from height of 40-70 meters and gathered a total of 4.5 hours or 270 minutes of traffic footage for analysis.
The weather was very severe, and in fact a storm warning was issued for the day. The blimp rocked wildly in the winds, turning to and fro madly. Despite that, the recording could be stabilized in-software and used. The height to which the blimp was allowed to rise was limited by the weather, too. Fortunately, both of the sites were completely kept in view of the camera all the time, so there wasn’t any problem with processing.
Results
A lot of interesting data was gathered in a short space of time. Thanks to these surveys, ESSEOTTO Engineering is now able to analyse the infrastructure with more efficiency.
As a reminder – we are ready to process short (ca. 5 minutes) video clips as a demonstration of our service. For this we need:
For more information about recording video usable with DataFromSky, please read the document “Recording video for DataFromSky”.
We will give you the results of analysis, which can be viewed in the freely downloadable version of viewer / trajectory analyzer. We are looking forward to showing you what DataFromSky can do!
Read more
A new function was added to DataFromSky: Traffic flow visualization. Instead of collecting vehicle counts from manually defined combinations of gates, one can now get a fully automatically generated overview of the situation. Take a look at the pictures below to compare the old and new ways:
Normal view – a tangle of trajectories
New view – trajectories’ aggregation
What happens behind the scenes is that the trajectories are grouped according to their characteristics and the resulting trajectory groups visualized according to their average. Needless to say, the DataFromSky team is pleased to bring another of computer science concepts – clustering – into practical use in the field of traffic engineering.
Of course, the trajectory clustering is again only another stepping stone on which one can build further. Even the most rudimentary statistics inside the trajectory groups allow getting at more and more interesting kinds of information. Let’s say… Automatic detection of fastest path, extracting the associated speed, time spent in roundabout etc., comparison with the rest of the group,… As always, there is much space to grow and improve. As we all know – the sky’s the limit!
As the academic year is coming to its last weeks, the DataFromSky protégés which you already heard about will boost the team shortly. So look forward to more news of this kind, and if you have an idea for a function, type of data, that can be extracted from the currently available information, we are ready to listen!
A series of recording happened around Venice in recent days. A big difference from our “traditional” quadcopter-based approach was the vehicle used for carrying the camera: a tethered blimp.
This pilot project involved TAU, TrafficLab and S8 Esseotto.
The blimp visited three crossroads around Venice, recording from height of 40-70 meters a total of 4.5 hours or 270 minutes of traffic footage for analysis. The weather was somewhat disfavourable, with strong gusts of wind. The results turned out excellent, though.
Analysis of the videos is underway.
The number of partners has increased in the recent days by four with TAU, Sky Eye Innovations, University of Palermo and Department of Mechanics, Energy, Management and Transportation Engineering at University of Genova.
TAU is a short for Trasporti e Ambiente Urbano s.r.l. The Milano-based company provides turn-key traffic analysis services, using its helium-filled balloons for recording video and DataFromSky as a subcontractor for processing and analysis.
Sky Eye Innovations is a Swedish company based in Stockholm, focusing on production and renting of custom-built UAVs. They will offer video recording services and distribution of DataFromSky.
Professor Gianfranco Rizzo from University of Palermo is working on advanced research into transportation – now with help from DataFromSky, too.
Department of Mechanics, Energy, Management and Transportation Engineering at University of Genova becomes another of our academic partners.
DataFromSky has a number of features for vehicle and object classification. Take a look at the detailed list as well as the video – and watch in HD!
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