The folks over at Chemical Facility Security News make an important comment on using Google Maps for designing a perimeter security layout.  We certainly agree that walking a site is the best way and only way to understand the nuances of a perimeter’s terrain. Ultimately, a good security design requires a real-world, on-site evaluation. It’s a good point and we thank them for making it.

Even so, SightSurvey is helpful for building good security concepts into a final site design. For instance, it can highlight the need to address the area under the pole — the so-called “dead zone” — which remains a security concern regardless of real-world terrain conditions. This is particularly important for securing large areas, such as chemical storage facilities, refineries, or transportation assets, because as you narrow the camera’s field of view to cover longer distances, the blind spot under the camera grows.

Importantly, each camera in a perimeter layout must address the dead zone of the next camera along the perimeter, and this area only increases as the distance covered by each camera expands.  Consider that a camera twenty feet off the ground using a seven degree field of view may have a blind zone as long as 60 meters.

A modeling tool like SightSurvey — while not a replacement for a real-world evaluation – can still play an important role in making sure that these important design gaps are appropriately addressed.

SightSurvey was designed to help integrators quickly and easily model an outdoor area and perimeter security layout around an actual site.  It’s become one of our most popular design tools.

SightSurvey uses Google Maps to create an intelligent video camera layout on any facility. This lets you address typical security design issues — like camera blind spots and terrain conditions — and determine areas of vulnerability or coverage gaps. By using Google Maps, you can gain a close approximation of the final design requirements even before you visit or walk the area.

With SightSurvey, you can set pole height, view blind spots under the camera, and choose visible or thermal intrusion detection cameras based on the application environment. Even large facilities such as airport perimeters, rail yards or seaports can be designed in a few minutes.

SightSurvey also lets you plan the number of cameras and their optimal placement, and determine a camera’s range for different sized object detection, such as a person versus a vehicle. You can also use SightSurvey to compare the number of cameras required for effective video intrusion detection around your facility.

We’ve put together a brief overview of SightSurvey, which you can watch below.  If you like what you see, register for SightSurvey here.

When it comes to protecting outdoor areas, security professionals often have two main concerns:  Not being aware of the risks that are lurking, and not knowing the place and nature of an intrusion should one occur.

Intelligent video cameras address the first concern by leveraging the inherent strengths of automated systems and people. Smart cameras never tire, can cover large distances, and “see” what the eye would miss. People can then be counted on to make response decisions.

It’s this second concern — the “what and where” of an unfolding event — that has been more difficult to address. Typically, a perimeter intrusion detection system will combine several technologies, including fixed cameras for long-range surveillance and PTZ’s to zoom and follow an object for more detail. The problem is that there’s almost no chance the PTZ cameras will be looking in the right place when an intrusion occurs. Trying to manually locate a detected alarm with a PTZ camera — especially over large outdoor areas — can be like finding a needle in a haystack.

The better way is to use systems that capture GPS positioning data, which is then used to steer PTZ cameras to automatically track and zoom in on intruders, making the target large enough to reliably identify. This information can also be used as forensic recording for post-event management.

You can see this in action in the following video.  Each video panel displays one element of a video intrusion detection system. The left panel shows a visible detection camera; the center panel shows a wide-area camera; the right panel shows a thermal camera, and the bottom right panel shows the PTZ. You’ll see how it is automatically steered to zoom and follow the target, which is simultaneously displayed onto the topology map on the bottom left.

Such automatic control is especially valuable for facilities that monitor large areas with long-range detection cameras.

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