Our Lancaster Exhibit

Today we're exhibiting in booth 35 at the "LANCASTER CHAMBER BUSINESS EXPO" , from 9AM TO 6PM. This exhibit features three LCD screens and a digital projector. We're using the projector to display a huge image on some blank wall space over an emergency exit in the aisleway to the left of our booth. The image comes from the pan/tilt/zoom camera you see atop the pole in the picture as it "tours" the exhibit room. A "tour" is a preset path that is programmed into the camera, in this case causing it to zoom down an aisle, pan over the displays, zoom out to show the entire exhibit hall, then pan around and zoom in on other aisles. The effect is meant to attract people to the image (and our booth) to see what it's all about.

The large LCD display atop our camera display rack is showing a continuous film clip from one of our vendors. The film is of the images from a state-of-the-art camera system located at a border crossing at a well-known middle east location. The camera is not manned but the camera's computer is looking for human-form images. When it finds one it puts a highlighted box around it and as the image moves, the box moves, leaving a highlighted trail behind it. In this case, the camera is watching an intruder, dressed completely in black, moving in the shadows and then crawling over a fence into the protected space. As soon as the space is invaded the image is alarmed and handed over to an automatic pan/tilt/zoom camera that then tracks the image. In this manner a border guard need do nothing more than glance at the monitor to assess the situation and take appropriate action. The camera does all the tracking without human intervention. This sequence is designed to interest people in the possibilities of CCTV and to experience it's use in high security situations.

We have two recording digital video recorders (DVRs) in a rack to the right of the booth, topped by another LCD display. The images on this monitor can display any of various cameras mounted on the panel to the left of the booth, and those cameras can be moved by use of the joy stick controller on the display table.

I'll say more about the results of this trade show tomorrow.