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Company Success Stories - Intergraph Corporation
Technology Developed To Explore Solar System Used By Intergraph Corporation To Fight Crime On Planet Earth
Profile
Intergraph Corporation
http://www.videoanalyst.com
March 1, 2002
"The AMD Athlon MP processor makes our system really responsive. It reduces processing time significantly, which means we can process much more video, as well as do several different enhancements in the same amount of time - James Johnson "
NASA researchers have long used satellite video to study storms, whether they are violent eruptions on the sun, or deadly hurricanes sweeping across the Atlantic. To enhance satellite video images, two NASA scientists, Dr. David Hathaway and Paul Meyer, developed software called VISAR (Video Image Stabilization and Registration) to help with their atmospheric detective work.
In 1996, it suddenly became apparent that the NASA technology could also be used for more down-to-earth investigations. In the aftermath of the fatal bombing at the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta, Hathaway and Meyer were asked by the FBI to enhance a crime scene video recorded in total darkness.
Since that time, this technology has increasingly provided significant enhancement to crime scene video analysis. Intergraph Government Solutions, a division of Intergraph Corporation in Huntsville, AL, has transformed NASA’s patented technology into a commercial product, Intergraph’s Video Analyst System. This system is a Microsoft® Windows®-based product powered by AMD Athlon™MP processors. The system provides video enhancement, tracking and stabilization capabilities for law enforcement, the U.S military, and private security companies.
“The VISAR technology provides dramatic results in lightening and stabilizing dark and jumpy video,” said Gene Grindstaff, project manager for Video Analyst. “Since incorporating VISAR in 2000, we’ve used Video Analyst to help solve crimes ranging from murder to counterfeiting to robbery.”
The Video Analyst systems are industry-standard PCs configured with the necessary combination of disk, graphics, and memory to support graphics-intensive video data. “We include a digital video capture card to allow customers to retrieve and convert analog video data, like the kind you play on a VCR, to a digital format that can be enhanced with our tools,” said James Johnson, Marketing Manager for Video Analyst.
Intergraph engineers consider the performance boost provided by a multi-processor-based system to be extremely important for the Video Analyst system. “This application is a very compute and I/O intensive system,” said Johnson. “The ability of the AMD Athlon MP processor-based system to work well with video data makes a big difference in the overall performance and throughput of the system. In video applications, the system allows us to read data from the disk with one processor at the same time we are processing video and drawing graphics to the screen with the other; in effect, a simultaneous read and write capability.”
Intergraph decided to test the AMD Athlon MP processor shortly after it was introduced in 2001. “We conducted our own benchmark tests with actual video cases used in our service center to benchmark AMD's processors,” said Johnson. “Our tests showed dramatic performance results. The AMD Athlon MP processor makes our system really responsive. It reduces processing time significantly, which means we can process much more video, as well as do several different enhancements in the same amount of time."
Certain key features of the AMD Athlon MP processor are vital to the performance boost Intergraph experienced. “The most important feature of the CPU in our application is efficient use of a fast front-side bus,” said Johnson. “The AMD Athlon processor’s front-side bus speed by itself effectively doubled performance because it was twice as fast as that of the processor we replaced." A fast bus prevents “choke points” in the data processing. Large cache is the second important feature that drives better performance, and the floating point calculations are also important. “The AMD Athlon MP processor also has some embedded graphics instructions that allow better performance when handling video graphics data.”
Intergraph had developed their own Video Enhancement Service Center that uses the same technology to provide enhancement and analysis services to customers on an as-needed basis. Some customers need enhancements only occasionally. Others have a greater need but are unable to afford a complete system or don’t have the necessary infrastructure to purchase and operate an analysis system. “We process tapes for individuals as well as private investigation firms, attorneys, state and local law enforcement organizations, and some military organizations,” Johnson said.
Intergraph joins an expanding list of technology companies whose role in national security may be growing ever larger in the wake of 9-11. Security issues prevent the company from disclosing specifics, but an Intergraph company spokesperson was recently interviewed on The Discovery Channel about the ways video enhancement technology could be used to reveal key information from a recent video recording of terrorist Osama Bin Laden. It is clear that Intergraph’s Video Analyst system could be an important crime-fighting tool for years to come.
AMD relishes every opportunity to work with innovative commercial partners like Intergraph to enhance public safety, today and in the foreseeable future. “We certainly plan to use AMD processors in the years ahead,” said Johnson. “Our benchmarks clearly show that AMD’s processors provide outstanding performance. And in our business, where so much can depend on the results we obtain, performance is everything.”
© 2002 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. All rights reserved.
AMD, the AMD Arrow logo, AMD Athlon, and combinations thereof, are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Video Analyst is a trademark of Intergraph Corporation. Other product names used are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective companies.
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