Maybe we need those cameras!

[Janina Sajka]

Is the SWAT resolution now available for civilian applications? I thought it was restricted? 
Also, what about the issue of tall buildings? Seems to me GPS has significant issues in areas like Manhattan and downtown Minneapolis. And, it doesn't work underground, right? As in shopping centers with underground levels?

I have always thought it would take interrelating two systems to really cover most circumstances.

Sean McMahon writes:
> I guess Ingland doesn't have the swat technogy on their gps's the military
> satelites should be accurate within 3 feet i've heard.
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Janina Sajka" <janina at rednote.net>
> To: <techteam at afb.net>
> Sent: Monday, April 12, 2004 9:13 AM
> Subject: Maybe we need those cameras!
> 
> 
> >
> >    Photo recognition software gives location
> >
> >    10 April 2004
> >
> >    from The New Scientist
> > http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994857
> >
> >    For a small fee, photo recognition software on a remote server works out
> precisely where you are, and sends back directions that will get you to your
> >    destination.
> >
> >    You are lost in a foreign city, you don't speak the language and you are
> late for your meeting. What do you do? Take out your cellphone, photograph
> >    the nearest building and press send.
> >
> >    For a small fee, photo recognition software on a remote server works out
> precisely where you are, and sends back directions that will get you to your
> >    destination. That, at least, is what two researchers at the University of
> Cambridge in the UK hope their software will one day be used for.
> >
> >
> Photo positioning
> >
> >    Roberto Cipolla and Duncan Robertson have developed a program that can
> match a photograph of a building to a database of images. The database contains
> >    a three-dimensional representation of the real-life street, so the software
> can work out where the user is standing to within one metre.
> >
> >    Line of sight
> >
> >    This is far better than existing systems can manage. GPS satellite
> positioning is accurate to 10 metres at best, and can be useless in cities where
> >    tall buildings shield the user from direct line of sight with the
> satellites. And positioning using cellphone base stations has a precision of
> between
> >    50 and 100 metres.
> >
> >    "Telling people 'You are in the vicinity of X' is no good to man nor
> beast," says John Craig of Cambridge Positioning Systems, a company that
> develops
> >    software for locating mobile phones.
> >
> >    Unlike the GPS or cellphone base station approaches, Cipolla and
> Robertson's software can tell which direction you are facing. So the service can
> >    launch straight into a set of directions such as "turn to your left and
> start walking", or give information on the building in the photograph.
> >
> >    When their system receives an image it begins by identifying vertical and
> horizontal lines. Next, it warps the image so that the horizontals are all
> >    parallel with each other, and the same for verticals. This transforms the
> picture into one that was taken square on, rather than at an angle.
> >
> > -- 
> >
> > Janina Sajka, Director
> > Technology Research and Development
> > Governmental Relations Group
> > American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)
> >
> > Email: janina at afb.net Phone: (202) 408-8175
> >
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> 
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-- 
	
				Janina Sajka, Director
				Technology Research and Development
				Governmental Relations Group
				American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)

Email: janina at afb.net		Phone: (202) 408-8175