METHODS, APPARATUS, AND SYSTEMS FOR DOCUMENTING AND REPORTING EVENTS VIA TIME-ELAPSED GEO-REFERENCED ELECTRONIC DRAWINGS
One or more electronic drawings may be generated to document and/or report an event, in which various elements of the drawing(s) include geographic reference information. A symbols library, a collection of images (e.g., geo-referenced images), geo-location data, and time and location data may be stored in memory for use in connection with such drawings, and a drawing tool graphical user interface (GUI) may be provided for electronically marking-up images on which one or more drawings are based. The marked-up images may be event-specific images, and may be integrated into various types of electronic reports for accurately depicting events of interest, such as personal injury events, vehicle accidents, and/or property damage events.
Latest CertusView Technologies, LLC Patents:
- Trenching methods and apparatus
- Cable communication systems and methods employing 256-QAM upstream channels and having increased upstream capacity for supporting voice and/or data services
- Methods and apparatus for quality assessment of a field service operation based on dynamic assessment parameters
- Methods, apparatus, and systems for acquiring an enhanced positive response for underground facility locate and marking operations
- Cable communication system optical nodes having selectable attenuation values to mitigate distortion of upstream information
This application claims a priority benefit, under 35 U.S.C. §119(e), to U.S. provisional patent application Ser. No. 61/166,385, entitled “Geo-Referenced Electronic Drawing Application for Documenting and Reporting Events,” filed on Apr. 3, 2009 under attorney docket no. D0687.70030US00.
This application also claims a priority benefit, under 35 U.S.C. §119(e), to U.S. provisional patent application Ser. No. 61/166,392, entitled “Data Acquisition System for and Method of Analyzing Vehicle Data for Generating an Electronic Representation of Vehicle Operations,” filed on Apr. 3, 2009 under attorney docket no. D0687.70032US00.
Each the above-identified applications is incorporated herein by reference.
BACKGROUNDIn any business setting, incidents that are not part of the standard business practice may take place and cause interruption to the business operation. Such incidents can potentially reduce the quality of the services or products of the business, and sometimes may impose civil or even criminal liabilities on the business. For any given business, the particular types of incidents that are disruptive may depend on the nature of the business. For example, in field service applications incidents to be reported may include personal injury events, vehicle accidents, and/or any types of property damage events that may occur in the field, and the like.
Currently, systems have been implemented for reporting and managing certain incidents. Using the example of vehicle accidents, upon arrival at the scene of a vehicle accident, a police officer or other investigator usually fills out a paper accident report explaining in detail the accident scene. As part of this report, the police officer or other investigator may attempt to draw a sketch of the accident scene on a diagram of the road, which is to be submitted with the paper accident report. However, a drawback of these paper-based reports, which may be handwritten and may include hand sketches, is that the content thereof may be inconsistent, sloppy, illegible, inaccurate, and/or incomplete. As a result, incidents, such as vehicle accidents, may be poorly documented. Once created, the accident reports are distributed to responsible entities for review, such as to accident investigation companies, law enforcement agencies, insurance companies, and any supervisory and/or management personnel. Similar processes may exist with respect to handling personal injury reports and property damage reports.
SUMMARYApplicants have recognized and appreciated that in conventional reporting systems, a major issue is the distribution of reports and tracking of the progress of the reviews to ensure timely resolution of the events. Depending on the types of events and other factors, different reports may have to be reviewed by different entities. The existence of multiple review routing paths can be rather confusing, making it difficult to ensure that the paper report is routed to the right entities in the right order. Moreover, paper reports may be misplaced or lost during transit to the different entities and the exact status of reports may be hard to determine. Further, a drawback of conventional reporting systems is that reports and, in particular paper reports, may not be in a form that is easy to retrieve for, for example, historical reference.
Another concern regarding conventional reporting systems is the lack of effective control over the access to the reports. Reports may contain sensitive or confidential information that should be viewed only by authorized entities. The necessary access control, however, can be difficult to implement or enforce due to the lack of effective measures to prevent unauthorized access to the documents or other factors such as distribution errors.
Therefore, Applicants have recognized that a need exists for improved ways of creating, distributing, and/or retrieving reports, such as, but not limited to, personal injury reports, vehicle accident reports, any types of damage reports, and the like.
In view of the foregoing, various embodiments of the present invention are directed to methods, apparatus, and systems for documenting events via time-elapsed geo-referenced electronic drawings. With respect to incidents, such as property damage and personal injury, that may be reported in field service applications, in exemplary embodiments one or more drawings may be provided that are referenced to a geographic location and/or that in some way indicate (to scale) the actual environment in which incidents have occurred. In various aspects, drawings may be provided to scale, include accurate directional and positional information, and/or include representations of various environmental landmarks (e.g., trees, buildings, poles, fire hydrants, barriers, any structures, etc). Examples of reports that may include one or more geo-referenced electronic drawings according to various inventive embodiments disclosed herein include, but are not limited to, personal injury reports, vehicle accident reports, and any types of damage reports.
In sum, one embodiment described herein is directed to an apparatus for documenting an incident at an incident site. The apparatus comprises a communication interface; a display device; at least one user input device; a memory to store processor-executable instructions; and a processing unit coupled to the communication interface, the display device, the at least one user input device, and the memory. Upon execution of the processor-executable instructions by the processing unit, the processing unit: controls the communication interface to electronically receive source data representing at least one input image of a geographic area including the incident site; controls the display device to display at least a portion of the at least one input image; acquires user input from the at least one user input device to provide a representation of at least a portion of the incident on the displayed image; automatically acquires time and/or date information indicating a time and/or date that the user input was acquired; generates a marked-up digital image including the representation of at least a portion of the incident based on the user input; further controls the communication interface and/or the memory to electronically transmit and/or electronically store information relating to the marked-up digital image so as to document the incident with respect to the geographic area; and further controls the communication interface and/or the memory to electronically transmit and/or electronically store the time and/or date information in association with the information relating to the marked-up digital image so as to document when the representation of the at least a portion of the incident was created.
Another embodiment is directed to a method for documenting an incident at an incident site. The method comprises: A) electronically receiving source data representing at least one input image of a geographic area including the incident site; B) processing the source data so as to display at least a portion of the at least one input image on a display device; C) adding to the at least a portion of the at least one input image, based on user input received via at least one user input device associated with the display device, a representation of at least a portion of the incident to thereby generate a marked-up digital image; D) automatically acquiring time and/or date information indicating a time and/or date that the user input was acquired; E) electronically transmitting and/or electronically storing information relating to the marked-up digital image so as to document the incident with respect to the geographic area; and F) electronically transmitting and/or electronically storing the time and/or date information in association with the information relating to the marked-up digital image so as to document when the representation of the at least a portion of the incident was created.
A further embodiment is directed to at least one computer-readable medium encoded with instructions that, when executed on at least one processing unit, perform a method for documenting an incident at an incident site. The method comprises: A) electronically receiving source data representing at least one input image of a geographic area including the incident site; B) processing the source data so as to display at least a portion of the at least one input image on a display device; C) receiving user input via at least one user input device associated with the display device; D) automatically acquiring time and/or date information indicating a time and/or date that the user input was acquired; E) adding, based on the user input, a representation of at least a portion of the incident to the displayed at least one input image to thereby generate a marked-up digital image; F) electronically transmitting and/or electronically storing information relating to the marked-up digital image so as to document the incident with respect to the geographic area; and G) electronically transmitting and/or electronically storing the time and/or date information in association with the information relating to the marked-up digital image so as to document at last generally when the representation of the at least a portion of the incident was created.
Another embodiment is directed to an apparatus for documenting an incident at an incident site. The apparatus comprises a communication interface; a display device; at least one user input device; a memory to store processor-executable instructions; and a processing unit coupled to the communication interface, the display device, the at least one user input device, and the memory. Upon execution of the processor-executable instructions by the processing unit, the processing unit: controls the communication interface to electronically receive source data representing at least one input image of a geographic area including the incident site; controls the display device to display at least a portion of the at least one input image; acquires first user input from the at least one user input device to provide a first representation of at least a portion of the incident at a first time on the at least one input image; generates a first marked-up digital image including the first representation based on the first user input; acquires second user input from the at least one user input device to provide a second representation of at least a portion of the incident at a second time on the at least one input image; generates a second marked-up digital image including the second representation based on the second user input; and further controls the communication interface and/or the memory to electronically transmit and/or electronically store information relating to the first and second marked-up digital images so as to document the incident at different times with respect to the geographic area.
A further embodiment is directed to a method for documenting an incident at an incident site. The method comprises: A) receiving source data representing at least one input image of a geographic area including the incident site; B) processing the source data so as to display at least a portion of the at least one input image on a display device; C) receiving first user input via at least one user input device associated with the display device; D) processing the first user input so as to display, on the display device, a first marked-up digital image including a first representation of at least a portion of the incident at a first time on the at least one input image; E) receiving second user input via the at least one user input device; F) processing the second user input so as to display, on the display device, a second marked-up digital image including a second representation of at least a portion of the incident at a second time on the at least one input image; and G) electronically transmitting and/or electronically storing information relating to the first and second marked-up digital images so as to document the incident at different times with respect to the geographic area.
Another embodiment is directed to at least one computer-readable medium encoded with instructions that, when executed on at least one processing unit, perform a method for documenting an incident at an incident site. The method comprises: A) receiving source data representing at least one input image of a geographic area including the incident site; B) processing the source data so as to display at least a portion of the at least one input image on a display device; C) receiving first user input via at least one user input device associated with the display device; D) processing the first user input so as to display, on the display device, a first marked-up digital image including a first representation of at least a portion of the incident at a first time on the at least one input image; E) receiving second user input via the at least one user input device; F) processing the second user input so as to display, on the display device, a second marked-up digital image including a second representation of at least a portion of the incident at a second time on the at least one input image; and G) electronically transmitting and/or electronically storing information relating to the first and second marked-up digital images so as to document the incident at different times with respect to the geographic area.
The following U.S. published applications are hereby incorporated herein by reference:
U.S. publication no. 2008-0228294-A1, published Sep. 18, 2008, filed Mar. 13, 2007, and entitled “Marking System and Method With Location and/or Time Tracking;”
U.S. publication no. 2008-0245299-A1, published Oct. 9, 2008, filed Apr. 4, 2007, and entitled “Marking System and Method;”
U.S. publication no. 2009-0013928-A1, published Jan. 15, 2009, filed Sep. 24, 2008, and entitled “Marking System and Method;”
U.S. publication no. 2009-0202101-A1, published Aug. 13, 2009, filed Feb. 12, 2008, and entitled “Electronic Manifest of Underground Facility Locate Marks;”
U.S. publication no. 2009-0202110-A1, published Aug. 13, 2009, filed Sep. 11, 2008, and entitled “Electronic Manifest of Underground Facility Locate Marks;”
U.S. publication no. 2009-0201311-A1, published Aug. 13, 2009, filed Jan. 30, 2009, and entitled “Electronic Manifest of Underground Facility Locate Marks;”
U.S. publication no. 2009-0202111-A1, published Aug. 13, 2009, filed Jan. 30, 2009, and entitled “Electronic Manifest of Underground Facility Locate Marks;”
U.S. publication no. 2009-0204625-A1, published Aug. 13, 2009, filed Feb. 5, 2009, and entitled “Electronic Manifest of Underground Facility Locate Operation;”
U.S. publication no. 2009-0204466-A1, published Aug. 13, 2009, filed Sep. 4, 2008, and entitled “Ticket Approval System For and Method of Performing Quality Control In Field Service Applications;”
U.S. publication no. 2009-0207019-A1, published Aug. 20, 2009, filed Apr. 30, 2009, and entitled “Ticket Approval System For and Method of Performing Quality Control In Field Service Applications;”
U.S. publication no. 2009-0210284-A1, published Aug. 20, 2009, filed Apr. 30, 2009, and entitled “Ticket Approval System For and Method of Performing Quality Control In Field Service Applications;”
U.S. publication no. 2009-0210297-A1, published Aug. 20, 2009, filed Apr. 30, 2009, and entitled “Ticket Approval System For and Method of Performing Quality Control In Field Service Applications;”
U.S. publication no. 2009-0210298-A1, published Aug. 20, 2009, filed Apr. 30, 2009, and entitled “Ticket Approval System For and Method of Performing Quality Control In Field Service Applications;”
U.S. publication no. 2009-0210285-A1, published Aug. 20, 2009, filed Apr. 30, 2009, and entitled “Ticket Approval System For and Method of Performing Quality Control In Field Service Applications;”
U.S. publication no. 2009-0204238-A1, published Aug. 13, 2009, filed Feb. 2, 2009, and entitled “Electronically Controlled Marking Apparatus and Methods;”
U.S. publication no. 2009-0208642-A1, published Aug. 20, 2009, filed Feb. 2, 2009, and entitled “Marking Apparatus and Methods For Creating an Electronic Record of Marking Operations;”
U.S. publication no. 2009-0210098-A1, published Aug. 20, 2009, filed Feb. 2, 2009, and entitled “Marking Apparatus and Methods For Creating an Electronic Record of Marking Apparatus Operations;”
U.S. publication no. 2009-0201178-A1, published Aug. 13, 2009, filed Feb. 2, 2009, and entitled “Methods For Evaluating Operation of Marking Apparatus;”
U.S. publication no. 2009-0202112-A1, published Aug. 13, 2009, filed Feb. 11, 2009, and entitled “Searchable Electronic Records of Underground Facility Locate Marking Operations;”
U.S. publication no. 2009-0204614-A1, published Aug. 13, 2009, filed Feb. 11, 2009, and entitled “Searchable Electronic Records of Underground Facility Locate Marking Operations;”
U.S. publication no. 2009-0238414-A1, published Sep. 24, 2009, filed Mar. 18, 2008, and entitled “Virtual White Lines for Delimiting Planned Excavation Sites;”
U.S. publication no. 2009-0241045-A1, published Sep. 24, 2009, filed Sep. 26, 2008, and entitled “Virtual White Lines for Delimiting Planned Excavation Sites;”
U.S. publication no. 2009-0238415-A1, published Sep. 24, 2009, filed Sep. 26, 2008, and entitled “Virtual White Lines for Delimiting Planned Excavation Sites;”
U.S. publication no. 2009-0241046-A1, published Sep. 24, 2009, filed Jan. 16, 2009, and entitled “Virtual White Lines for Delimiting Planned Excavation Sites;”
U.S. publication no. 2009-0238416-A1, published Sep. 24, 2009, filed Jan. 16, 2009, and entitled “Virtual White Lines for Delimiting Planned Excavation Sites;”
U.S. publication no. 2009-0237408-A1, published Sep. 24, 2009, filed Jan. 16, 2009, and entitled “Virtual White Lines for Delimiting Planned Excavation Sites;”
U.S. publication no. 2009-0238417-A1, published Sep. 24, 2009, filed Feb. 6, 2009, and entitled “Virtual White Lines for Indicating Planned Excavation Sites on Electronic Images;”
U.S. publication no. 2009-0327024-A1, published Dec. 31, 2009, filed Jun. 26, 2009, and entitled “Methods and Apparatus for Quality Assessment of a Field Service Operation;”
U.S. publication no. 2010-0010862-A1, published Jan. 14, 2010, filed Aug. 7, 2009, and entitled “Methods and Apparatus for Quality Assessment of a Field Service Operation Based on Geographic Location;”
U.S. publication no. 2010-0010863-A1, published Jan. 14, 2010, filed Aug. 7, 2009, and entitled “Methods and Apparatus for Quality Assessment of a Field Service Operation Based on Multiple Scoring Categories;”
U.S. publication no. 2010-0010882-A1, published Jan. 14, 2010, filed Aug. 7, 2009, and entitled “Methods and Apparatus for Quality Assessment of a Field Service Operation Based on Dynamic Assessment Parameters;” and
U.S. publication no. 2010-0010883-A1, published Jan. 14, 2010, filed Aug. 7, 2009, and entitled “Methods and Apparatus for Facilitating a Quality Assessment of a Field Service Operation Based on Multiple Quality Assessment Criteria.”
It should be appreciated that all combinations of the foregoing concepts and additional concepts discussed in greater detail below (provided such concepts are not mutually inconsistent) are contemplated as being part of the inventive subject matter disclosed herein. In particular, all combinations of claimed subject matter appearing at the end of this disclosure are contemplated as being part of the inventive subject matter disclosed herein. It should also be appreciated that terminology explicitly employed herein that also may appear in any disclosure incorporated by reference should be accorded a meaning most consistent with the particular concepts disclosed herein.
The drawings are not necessarily to scale, emphasis instead generally being placed upon illustrating the principles of the invention.
Following below are more detailed descriptions of various concepts related to, and embodiments of, inventive methods, apparatus and systems according to the present disclosure for facilitating documentation of events (e.g., an incident, such as a motor vehicle accident) via one or more time-elapsed geo-referenced electronic drawings. It should be appreciated that various concepts introduced above and discussed in greater detail below may be implemented in any of numerous ways, as the disclosed concepts are not limited to any particular manner of implementation. Examples of specific implementations and applications are provided primarily for illustrative purposes.
A geo-referenced electronic drawing application for documenting and reporting events is described herein. The geo-referenced electronic drawing application may provide a mechanism for importing a geo-referenced image that may be marked up with symbols and/or any other markings for indicating the details of an event, such as a vehicle accident. The geo-referenced image may include data associated therewith (e.g., embedded metadata) that allows identification of locational information (e.g., locational coordinates) for any point or region on the image. Further, the geo-referenced electronic drawing application may provide a mechanism for generating a report of the event that includes the marked up geo-referenced image. A networked system that includes the geo-referenced electronic drawing application is also described.
It should be appreciated that while the imported or otherwise acquired image is described herein as “geo-referenced,” and the drawing application is likewise described as geo-referenced, the image need not be geo-referenced unless required for a particular implementation and the drawing application may be used for non geo-referenced images. In many instances, an image that is not geo-referenced may be suitably used. Examples of non geo-referenced images that may be suitable in various scenarios are: a stock or generic image of an intersection, a stock or generic image of an room, a stock or generic image of a street, and a photograph taken during investigation of an incident or generation of a report on the incident. Of course, these are merely exemplary, as many other types of non geo-referenced images are possible.
Further, while certain embodiments may be described in the context of generating a vehicle accident report, this is exemplary only. The geo-referenced electronic drawing application described herein is suitable for generating any type of report in which a geo-referenced image (or other image) may be useful, such as, but not limited to, personal injury reports, vehicle accident reports, any types of property damage reports, and the like. For example, the methods and apparatus described herein may be useful for providing reports that include images in various field service applications, such as, but not limited to, those of underground facilities locate companies, excavation companies, landscaping companies, tree care and removal companies, utility installation and repair companies, and the like.
The geo-referenced electronic drawing application described herein may provide the ability to electronically mark up real world geo-referenced images with symbols, shapes, and/or lines in order to provide improved and consistent accuracy with respect to drawings that support incident reports.
In addition, the geo-referenced electronic drawing application described herein may provide the ability to electronically mark up real world geo-referenced images with symbols, shapes, and/or lines to scale, again providing improved and consistent accuracy with respect to drawings that support incident reports.
Further, the geo-referenced electronic drawing application may provide a standard symbols library, thereby providing standardization with respect to drawings that support incident reports.
Networked systems that include the geo-referenced electronic drawing application described herein may provide improved distribution, tracking, and auditing of reports among entities and the systems provide improved control over access to reports.
Referring to
Geo-referenced electronic drawing application 100 may be executed by a processing unit 110 and stored in memory 112. Processing unit 110 may be any standard microcontroller or microprocessor device that is capable of executing program instructions of geo-referenced electronic drawing application 100. Memory 112 may be any standard data storage medium. In one example, a symbols library 114, a collection of input images 116, certain geo-location data 118, and timestamp data 120, may be stored in memory 112.
Timestamp data 120 may include calendar date and/or time information. Timestamp data 120 may originate from, for example, the computing device on which geo-referenced electronic drawing application 100 is installed, any other computing device, and/or manual entry by the user.
Location stamp data 150 may include location information such as a city and state, zip code, or geographic coordinates. Location stamp data 150 may originate from, for example, the computing device on which geo-referenced electronic drawing application 100 is installed, any other computing device, and/or manual entry by the user.
Symbols library 114, input images 116, geo-location data 118, timestamp data 120 and location stamp data 150 support the functions of a drawing tool graphical user interface (GUI) 122 of geo-referenced electronic drawing application 100. Drawing tool GUI 122 is suitable for presenting on the display of any computing device, such as a computing device 140. By reading geographic location information from geo-location data 118 and/or by processing geographic location information that may be manually entered, processing unit 110 retrieves a certain input image 116 that corresponds to the geographic location information and displays the input image 116 in a window of drawing tool GUI 122. Geographic location information may be, for example, a physical address, latitude and longitude coordinates, and/or any global positioning system (GPS) data.
For purposes of the present disclosure, an input image 116 is any image represented by source data that is electronically processed (e.g., the source data is in a computer-readable format) to display the image on a display device. An input image 116 may include any of a variety of paper/tangible image sources that are scanned (e.g., via an electronic scanner) or otherwise converted so as to create source data (e.g., in various formats such as XML, PDF, JPG, BMP, etc.) that can be processed to display the input image 116. An input image 116 also may include an image that originates as source data or an electronic file without necessarily having a corresponding paper/tangible copy of the image (e.g., an image of a “real-world” scene acquired by a digital still frame or video camera or other image acquisition device, in which the source data, at least in part, represents pixel information from the image acquisition device).
In some exemplary implementations, input images 116 according to the present disclosure may be created, provided, and/or processed by a geographic information system (GIS) that captures, stores, analyzes, manages and presents data referring to (or linked to) location, such that the source data representing the input image 116 includes pixel information from an image acquisition device (corresponding to an acquired “real world” scene or representation thereof), and/or spatial/geographic information (“geo-encoded information”).
In some exemplary implementations, one or more input images 116 may be stored in local memory 112 of the computing device 140 and/or retrieved from the optional remote computer (e.g., via the communication interface 124) and then stored in local memory. Various information may be derived from the one or more input images for display (e.g., all or a portion of the input image, metadata associated with the input image, etc.).
In view of the foregoing, various examples of input images and source data representing input images 116 according to the present disclosure, to which the inventive concepts disclosed herein may be applied, include but are not limited to:
-
- Various maps, such as street/road maps (e.g., map 700 of
FIG. 7 ), topographical maps, military maps, parcel maps, tax maps, town and county planning maps, virtual maps, etc. (such maps may or may not include geo-encoded information). Such maps may be scaled to a level appropriate for the application; - Architectural, construction and/or engineering drawings and virtual renditions of a space/geographic area (including “as built” or post-construction drawings). Such drawings/renditions may be useful, e.g., in property damage report applications or for documenting construction, landscaping or maintenance. An exemplary construction/engineering drawing 800 is shown in
FIG. 8 ; - Land surveys, i.e., plots produced at ground level using references to known points such as the center line of a street to plot the metes and bounds and related location data regarding a building, parcel, utility, roadway, or other object or installation. Land survey images may be useful, e.g., in vehicular incident report applications or police report applications.
FIG. 9 shows an exemplary land survey map 900; - A grid (a pattern of horizontal and vertical lines used as a reference) to provide representational geographic information (which may be used “as is” for an input image or as an overlay for an acquired “real world” scene, drawing, map, etc.). An exemplary grid 1000, overlaid on construction/engineering drawing 800, is shown in
FIG. 10 . It should be appreciated that the grid 1000 may itself serve as the input image (i.e., a “bare” grid), or be used together with another underlying input image; - “Bare” data representing geo-encoded information (geographical data points) and not necessarily derived from an acquired/captured real-world scene (e.g., not pixel information from a digital camera or other digital image acquisition device). Such “bare” data may be nonetheless used to construct a displayed input image, and may be in any of a variety of computer-readable formats, including XML).
- One example of bare data is geo-referenced data relating to municipal assets. Databases exist that include geo-location information (e.g., latitude and longitude coordinates) and attribute information (e.g., sign type) for municipal assets such as signs, crash attenuators, parking meters, barricades, and guardrails. Such a database may be used in connection with an asset management system, such as the Infor EAM (Enterprise Asset Management) system by Infor Global Solutions of Alpharetta, Ga., to manage municipal assets. Using bare data relating to municipal assets, a geo-encoded image may be constructed that includes representations of municipal assets at their relative locations. In particular, the attribute information may be used to select a symbol representing the asset in the image, and the geo-location information may be used to determine the placement of the symbol in the image.
- Other examples of bare data are geo-referenced data relating to weather and geo-referenced data relating to traffic. Both weather and traffic data are available from various sources in Geographic Information System (GIS) format. For example, a set of points, lines, and/or regions in a spatial database may represent locations or areas having a particular traffic attribute (e.g., heavy traffic, construction, moderate congestion, minor stall, normal speeds) or a particular weather attribute (e.g., heavy snow, rain, hail, fog, lightning, clear skies). The data in the database may be dynamic, such that the points, lines, and/or regions and corresponding attributes change as the traffic and weather conditions change. Using bare data relating to traffic and/or weather, a geo-encoded image may be constructed that includes representations of traffic and/or weather conditions at their relative locations. In particular, the attribute information may be used to select a symbol, pattern, and/or color representing the traffic or weather condition in the image, and the geo-location information may be used to determine the placement of the symbol, pattern and/or color in the image. An example of a source for GIS traffic data is NAVIGATOR, the Georgia Department of Transportation's Intelligent Transportation System (ITS). GIS weather data is available from the National Weather Service (NWS). Such weather data may be provided as shapefiles, which is a format for storing geographic information and associated attribute information. Shapefiles may include information relating to weather warnings (e.g., tornado, severe thunderstorm, and flash flood warnings) and the like.
- Various maps, such as street/road maps (e.g., map 700 of
-
- Photographic renderings/images, including street level (see e.g., street level image 1100 of
FIG. 11 ), topographical, satellite, and aerial photographic renderings/images, any of which may be updated periodically to capture changes in a given geographic area over time (e.g., seasonal changes such as foliage density, which may variably impact the ability to see some aspects of the image). Such photographic renderings/images may be useful, e.g., in connection with preparing property damage reports, vehicular incident reports, police reports, etc.
- Photographic renderings/images, including street level (see e.g., street level image 1100 of
It should also be appreciated that source data representing an input image 116 may be compiled from multiple data/information sources; for example, any two or more of the examples provided above for input images and source data representing input images 116, or any two or more other data sources, can provide information that can be combined or integrated to form source data that is electronically processed to display an image on a display device.
Referring to
Drawing tool GUI 122 may present a certain input image 116 that corresponds to specified geographic location information. For example, location information from geo-location data 118 may be automatically read into an address field 210 and/or a geo-location data field 212. Alternatively, location information may be manually entered in address field 210 and/or geo-location data field 212. In one example, input image 116 may be an aerial image that corresponds to the geographic location information. Overlaying input image 116 may be an image scale 214. Input image 116 is read into drawing tool GUI 122 and may be oriented in the proper manner with respect to directional heading (i.e., north, south, east, and west).
Drawing tool GUI 122 may also include various palettes, toolbars, or other interfaces that enable the user to manipulate (e.g., zoom in, zoom out) and/or mark up input image 116. For example, drawing tool GUI 122 may include a drawing toolbar 216 that may include a sketching palette as well as a symbols palette. The sketching palette portion of drawing toolbar 216 may provide standard drawing tools that allow a user to draw certain shapes (e.g., a polygon, a rectangle, a circle, a line) atop input image 116. The symbols palette portion of drawing toolbar 216 provides a collection of any symbols that may be useful for depicting the event of interest, such as a vehicle accident. The source of these symbols may be symbols library 114. For example, symbols library 114 may include, but is not limited to, a collection of car symbols, truck symbols, other vehicle symbols (e.g., emergency vehicles, buses, farm equipment, 2-wheel vehicles, etc), landmark symbols (e.g., fire hydrants, trees, fences, poles, cross walks, various barriers, etc), symbols of signs (e.g., standard road signs, any other signs, etc), symbols of people (e.g., pedestrians), symbols of animals, and the like. By use of the elements of drawing toolbar 216, a user may mark up input image 116 in a manner that depicts, for example, the vehicle accident scene. In one example and referring to
Optionally, the drawing tool GUI 122 may allow a user to specify a confidence level for a selected symbol. For example, if a user selects a symbol corresponding to a bus to be overlaid on input image 116, the user may specify an associated confidence level to indicate a degree of confidence that the observed vehicle was a bus. The confidence level may be numeric, e.g., “25%,” or descriptive, e.g., “low.” An indication of the confidence level or a degree of uncertainty may be displayed adjacent the corresponding symbol or may be integrated with the symbol itself. For example, a question mark or the confidence level may be displayed on or near the symbol. Additionally or alternatively, an indication of the confidence level may be included in the text of a vehicle accident report including the marked up input image.
The aforementioned palettes, toolbars, and/or symbols library are described in the context of preparing a vehicle accident report. However, this is exemplary only. The palettes, toolbars, and/or symbols library of the geo-referenced electronic drawing application of the present disclosure may be industry-specific and/or incident type-specific. As a result, the palettes, toolbars, and/or symbols library may be selectable by the user depending on the application in which the geo-referenced electronic drawing application is being used. In one example, with respect to an incident involving tree damage and/or a tree damaging a structure, the user may select palettes, toolbars, and/or symbols that include trees and building rooflines that may be used for marking up the geo-referenced image.
Additionally, geo-referenced electronic drawing application 100 may be designed to automatically render symbols to scale upon the geo-referenced drawing according to the settings of scale 214. This is one example of how geo-referenced electronic drawing application 100 may provide consistent accuracy to drawings that support incident reports. Further, the presence of a standard symbols library, such as symbols library 114, is one example of how geo-referenced electronic drawing application 100 provides standardization to drawings that support incident reports.
The geo-referenced electronic drawing application 100 may be configured to allow the viewing angle or perspective of the input image 116 and/or representations thereon to be changed. For example, a user may switch between an overhead view, a perspective view, and a side view. This may be accomplished by correlating corresponding points in two or more geo-referenced images, for example. A symbol, such as a representation of a vehicle, or other content-related marking added to an image may have three-dimensional data associated therewith to enable the symbol to be viewed from different angles. Thus, while a viewing angle or perspective of an image may change, its content (e.g., a representation of a vehicle accident and its surrounding) may remain the same.
Further, the geo-referenced electronic drawing application 100 may be configured to allow the input image 116 to be manually or automatically modified. For example, it may be desirable to remove extraneous features, such as cars, from the input image 116. The geo-referenced electronic drawing application 100 may include shape or object recognition software that allows such features to be identified and/or removed. One example of software capable of recognizing features in an image, such as an aerial image, is ENVI® image processing and analysis software by ITT Corporation of White Plains, N.Y. Exemplary features that may be recognized include vehicles, buildings, roads, bridges, rivers, lakes, and fields. The geo-referenced electronic drawing application 100 may be configured such that a value indicating a level of confidence that an identified object corresponds to a particular feature may optionally be displayed. Automatically identified features may be automatically modified in the image in some manner. For example, the features may be blurred or colored (e.g., white, black or to resemble a color of one or more pixels adjacent the feature). Additionally, or alternatively, the geo-referenced electronic drawing application 100 may include drawing tools (e.g., an eraser tool or copy and paste tool), that allow such features to be removed, concealed, or otherwise modified after being visually recognized by a user or automatically recognized by the geo-referenced electronic drawing application 100 or associated software.
Drawing toolbar 216 may also allow the user to add text boxes that can be used to add textual content to input image 116. In one example, a callout 218 may be one mechanism for entering and displaying textual information about, in this example, the vehicle collision.
Further, drawing tool GUI 122 may include a navigation toolbar 220 by which the user may zoom or pan input image 116 (e.g., zoom in, zoom out, zoom to, pan, pan left, pan right, pan up, pan down, etc.). Navigation toolbar 220 may additionally include one or more buttons that enable user drawn shapes to be accentuated (e.g., grayscale, transparency, etc.). Additionally, a set of scroll controls 222 may be provided in the image display window that allows the user to scroll input image 116 north, south, east, west, and so on with respect to real world directional heading. In addition, the drawing application may be configured to reposition the displayed image so that it is directionally aligned with a direction of the display screen, based on an input from a compass or other device indicative of an orientation of the display screen in the environment.
Overlaying input image 116 may also be a timestamp 224 and/or a location stamp 250. Timestamp 224 may indicate the creation date and/or time or a save date and/or time of a marked up input image 116 or information used to generate the marked up input image. Timestamp data 120 in memory 112 of
The timestamp 224 and location stamp 250 may be automatically generated based, for example, on the output of a timer device and GPS device as discussed above. Further, the timestamp and location stamp may be difficult or impossible for a user to modify. Thus, the timestamp and location stamp may be used to verify that the marked-up input image with which they are associated was created at an expected time and place, such as the general or specific time and place where the vehicular accident or other incident was investigated. If desired, time and/or location data may be automatically acquired several times during the creation of one or more marked-up digital images, and may be stored in association with the images, to enable verification that the user was present at the time and/or place of the investigation for some duration of time.
The ability to read in and electronically mark up real world geo-referenced images, such as input images 116, with symbols, shapes, and/or lines is one example of how geo-referenced electronic drawing application 100 may provide improved and consistent accuracy to drawings that support incident reports.
In some embodiments, the input image data and the mark up data (e.g., the electronic representations of the vehicles, landmarks and/or signs), may be displayed as separate “layers” of the visual rendering, such that a viewer of the visual rendering may turn on and turn off displayed data based on a categorization of the displayed data. Respective layers may be enabled or disabled for display in any of a variety of manners. According to one exemplary implementation shown in
In the example of
The reference layer and symbols layers may have sub-categories for sub-layers, such that each sub-layer may also be selectively enabled or disabled for viewing by a viewer. For example, under the general layer designation 1202 of “reference layer,” a “base image” sub-layer may be selected for display. The base image sub-layer is merely one example of a sub-layer that may be included under the “reference layer,” as other sub-layers (e.g., “grid”) are possible. Under the general layer designation 1206 of “symbols layer,” different symbol types that may be overlaid on the input image may be categorized under different sub-layer designations (e.g., designation 1208 for “cars layer;” designation 1212 for “trucks layer;” designation 1216 for “other vehicles layer;” designation 1218 for “landmarks layer;” and designation 1220 for “signs layer”). In this manner, a viewer may be able to display certain symbols information (e.g., concerning cars and trucks), while hiding other symbols information (e.g., concerning other vehicles, landmarks and signs).
Further, the various sub-layers may have further sub-categories for sub-layers, such that particular features within a sub-layer may also be selectively enabled or disabled for viewing by a viewer. For example, the cars layer may include a designation 1210 for “car 1,” and the truck layer may include a designation 1214 for “truck 1.” Thus, information concerning the car 1222 (“car 1”) and truck 1224 (“truck 1”) involved in the accident can be selected for display.
As shown in the example of
Virtually any characteristic of the information available for display may serve to categorize the information for purposes of display layers or sub-layers. In particular, any of the various exemplary elements that may be rendered using the drawing tool GUI 122 discussed herein (e.g., timestamps; scales; callouts; estimated time information; input image content; symbols relating to vehicles, landmarks, signs, people, animals or the like, etc.) may be categorized as a sub-layer, and one or more sub-layers may further be categorized into constituent elements for selective display (e.g., as sub-sub-layers).
Further, layers may be based on user-defined attributes of symbols or other rendered features. For example, a layer may be based on the speed of vehicles, whether vehicles were involved in the accident, whether the vehicles are public service vehicles, the location of vehicles at a particular time, and so on. For example, a user may define particular vehicle symbols as having corresponding speeds, and a “moving vehicles layer” may be selected to enable the display of vehicles having non-zero speeds. Additionally or alternatively, selecting the moving vehicles layer may cause information concerning the speed of the moving vehicles to be displayed. For example, text indicating a speed of 15 mph may be displayed adjacent a corresponding vehicle. Similarly, a user may define particular vehicle symbols as being involved in the accident, and an “accident vehicles layer” may be selected to enable the display of vehicles involved in the accident. Additionally or alternatively, selecting the accident vehicles layer may cause information identifying accident vehicles to be displayed. For example, an icon indicative of an accident vehicle may be displayed adjacent a corresponding vehicle. The “moving vehicles layer” and the “accident vehicles” layer may be sub-layers under the symbols layer, or may be sub-layers under a “vehicle layer” (not shown), which itself is a sub-layer under the symbols layer. Further, the “moving vehicles layer” and the “accident vehicles layer” may in turn include sub-layers. For example, the “moving vehicles layer” may include a sub-layer to enable the display of all vehicles traveling east. From the foregoing, it may be appreciated that a wide variety of information may be categorized in a nested hierarchy of layers, and information included in the layers may be visually rendered, when selected/enabled for display, in a variety of manners.
Other attributes of symbols or other rendered features may also be used as the basis for defining layers. For example, the user-determined and/or automatically determined confidence levels of respective symbols, as discussed herein, may be used as the basis for defining layers. According to one illustrative example, a layer may be defined to include only those symbols that have an associated user-determined and/or automatically determined confidence level of at least some percentage, e.g., 50%. The information concerning the confidence levels associated with the symbols may be drawn from a report in which such levels are included.
It should further be appreciated that, according to various embodiments, the attributes and/or type of visual information displayed as a result of selecting one or more layers or sub-layers is not limited. In particular, visual information corresponding to a selected layer or sub-layer may be electronically rendered in the form of one or more lines or shapes (of various colors, shadings and/or line types), text, graphics (e.g., symbols or icons), and/or images, for example. Likewise, the visual information corresponding to a selected layer or sub-layer may include multiple forms of visual information (one or more of lines, shapes, text, graphics and/or images).
In yet other embodiments, all of the symbols and/or other overlaid information of a particular marked up input image may be categorized as a display layer, such that the overlaid information may be selectively enabled or disabled for display as a display layer. In this manner, a user may conveniently toggle between the display of various related marked up input images (e.g., marked up input images relating to the same accident or other event) for comparative display. In particular, a user may toggle between scenes depicting the events of an accident at different times.
It should be appreciated that a layer need not include a singular category of symbols or overlaid information, and may be customized according to a user's preferences. For example, a user may select particular features in one or more marked up input images that the user would like to enable to be displayed collectively as a layer. Additionally or alternatively, the user may select a plurality of categories of features that the user would like to enable to be displayed collectively as a layer.
In some embodiments, processing unit 110 (
Referring to
Each descriptor file 128 includes information about each event-specific image 126 of an image series 130. Using the example of a vehicle accident report, each descriptor file 128 may include the accident report number, the name of the event-specific image 126 with respect to the image series 130, the creation date, and the like. Descriptor files 128 provide a mechanism of geo-referenced electronic drawing application 100 that allow event-specific images 126 and/or any image series 130 to be queried by other applications, such as any incident management applications. In one example, descriptor files 128 may be extensible markup language (XML) files that are created during the save process of event-specific images 126 and/or image series 130.
Referring to
Each of the event-specific images 126A-C may include a corresponding estimated relative time 225A-C represented thereon. The estimated relative time may reflect an estimated time of the event (e.g., a vehicle accident) depicted in the event-specific image. In the example of
In some embodiments, it may be desirable to generate an animated sequence based on a plurality of event-specific images 126. According to one exemplary implementation shown in
The animation controls window 1302 comprises an interface 1304 for specifying frame order, an interface 1306 for specifying animation speed, and an interface 1308 for specifying a transition between frames. In the example of
Interface 1304 lists options for specifying the animation speed of the frames. A first option, which is selected in the example of
It should be appreciated that the animation speed need not be consistent for all frames, and that the animation speed for particular sequences of frames may be adjusted as desired by the user. For example, the time associated with one or more frames may be increased or decreased relative to an estimated time so that the user can observe how such an increase or decrease impacts the animation and/or simulate different scenarios.
Interface 1306 lists options for specifying a transition between overlaid features in the frames (e.g., vehicle symbols). A first option, which is selected in the example of
Referring to
Referring to
In this example, a certain event-specific image 126 is read into a drawing field of traffic collision report 400. In this way, the certain event-specific image 126 is integrated into traffic collision report 400. The textual information of traffic collision report 400 may be manually entered and/or automatically imported from information associated with event-specific image 126, which was captured using drawing tool GUI 122. For example, a “Description of Accident” field may be populated with textual information of callout 218 (see
A report 132, such as traffic collision report 400, is not limited to incorporating a single event-specific image 126 only. For example, subsequent pages of traffic collision report 400 may include all event-specific images 126 of a certain image series 130, such as those shown in
Referring to
At step 510, by use of drawing tool GUI 122, processing unit 110 of geo-referenced electronic drawing application 100 acquires location information with respect to the event of interest. For example, geographic location information from geo-location data 118 may be automatically read into address field 210 and/or geo-location data field 212 of drawing tool GUI 122. Alternatively, location information may be manually entered in address field 210 and/or geo-location data field 212.
At step 512, the collection of geo-referenced images is queried, the matching geo-referenced image is read into drawing tool GUI 122, and the geo-referenced image is rendered in the viewing window of drawing tool GUI 122. For example, processing unit 110 of geo-referenced electronic drawing application 100 queries input images 116, which are the geo-referenced images, in order to find the input image 116 that matches the location information of step 510. Once the matching input image 116 is found, the input image 116 is read into drawing tool GUI 122 and rendered in the viewing window thereof. In this way, a geo-referenced image is provided to the user, upon which markings that indicate the event of interest may be made. In one example and referring to
At step 514, processing unit 110 of geo-referenced electronic drawing application 100 may process any symbols that are selected from symbols library 114 along with any other markings that are overlaid upon the geo-referenced image to depict the event of interest. For example, any symbols that are selected using drawing toolbar 216 of drawing tool GUI 122 may be overlaid upon the certain input image 116 in order to the depict event of interest, such as a vehicle accident. In one example and referring to
Further, other markings (e.g., a polygon, a rectangle, a circle, a line) may be overlaid upon input image 116. In one example, using the sketching palette portion of drawing toolbar 216, lines to indicate skid marks may be drawn upon input image 116.
At step 516, processing unit 110 of geo-referenced electronic drawing application 100 may process any textual information related to the geo-referenced image. In one example and referring to
At step 518, processing unit 110 of geo-referenced electronic drawing application 100 may render and save the event-specific image along with its associated descriptor file. In one example when the user has completed marking up (e.g., with lines, shapes, symbols, text, etc.) the certain input image 116, the marked up input image 116 may be saved as an event-specific image 126. For example, during the save operation of geo-referenced electronic drawing application 100, any event-specific images 126 created therein may be converted to any standard digital image file format, such as PDF, JPG, and BMP file format, and saved. Further, its associated descriptor file 128 is created and saved.
At decision step 520, the user of geo-referenced electronic drawing application 100 determines whether an image series, such as the example image series 130 of
At decision step 522, the user of geo-referenced electronic drawing application 100 determines whether the image series is complete. If yes, method 500 proceeds to step 524. If no, method 500 returns to step 510 to begin creating the next event-specific image.
At step 524, the descriptor files 128 of the event-specific images 126 that are included in the image series 130 are associated and the image series 130 is saved.
At step 526, the event-specific image 126 and/or all event-specific images 126 of the image series 130 and any other information are integrated into the electronic report of interest. In one example, a certain event-specific image 126 is integrated into a certain type of report 132, such as traffic collision report 400 of
Referring to
Application server 610 may be any application server, such as a web application server and/or web portal, by which one or more user 612 may access geo-referenced electronic drawing application 100 with respect to documenting and reporting events. Application server 610 may be accessed by users 612 via any networked computing device, such as his/her local computing device 140. In one example, users 612 may be any personnel associated with accident investigation companies, law enforcement agencies, and/or insurance companies.
Networked system 600 of the present disclosure may further include an image server 614, which is one example of an entity supplying input images 116 of
Networked system 600 of the present disclosure may further include a central server 616. In one example, central server 616 may be associated with accident investigation companies, law enforcement agencies, and/or insurance companies. Certain business applications, such as management applications 618, may reside on central server 616. Management applications 618 may be, for example, any incident management applications.
A network 620 provides the communication link between any and/or all entities of networked system 600. For example, network 620 provides the communication network by which information may be exchanged between application server 610, image server 614, central server 616, and computing devices 140. Network 620 may be, for example, any local area network (LAN) and/or wide area network (WAN) for connecting to the Internet.
In order to connect to network 620, each entity of networked system 600 includes a communication interface (not shown). For example, the respective communication interfaces of application server 610, image server 614, central server 616, and computing devices 140 may be any wired and/or wireless communication interface by which information may be exchanged between any entities of networked system 600. Examples of wired communication interfaces may include, but are not limited to, USB ports, RS232 connectors, RJ45 connectors, Ethernet, and any combinations thereof. Examples of wireless communication interfaces may include, but are not limited to, an Intranet connection, Internet, Bluetooth® technology, Wi-Fi, Wi-Max, IEEE 802.11 technology, radio frequency (RF), Infrared Data Association (IrDA) compatible protocols, Local Area Networks (LAN), Wide Area Networks (WAN), Shared Wireless Access Protocol (SWAP), any combinations thereof, and other types of wireless networking protocols.
In certain embodiments, geo-referenced electronic drawing application 100 may include a feature for attaching media files to reports 132. For example, networked system 600 may include certain media capture devices 622 for capturing media files 624. Media capture devices 622 may be any media capture devices, such as digital cameras, digital audio recorders, digital video recorders, and the like. Therefore, media files 624 may be, for example, digital image files, digital audio files, digital video files, and the like. The media files 624 may likewise have descriptor files (not shown) associated therewith for, for example, associating to certain reports 132. In one example, the media files 624 may be provided as attachments to reports 132. According to other embodiments, computing device 140 may include one or more media capture devices as described above.
The attached media files 624 may be stamped with time, location and/or direction information. For example, a media file 624 may include a timestamp identifying a calendar date and/or time that the media file was created and/or a calendar date and/or time that the media file was stored in memory by the computing device 140. Similarly, the media file may include a location stamp identifying a location (e.g., a city and state or geographic coordinates) where the media file was created and/or a location where the media file was stored in memory by the computing device 140. A media file may also include a direction stamp specifying directional information associated therewith. For example, if the media file is a photographic image or video that was taken with a camera device associated with a compass, the photographic image or video may be stamped with directional information based on an output of the compass to indicate that the image or video was taken while the camera lens was facing northwest. In certain embodiments, the media files 624 may be automatically stamped with time, location and/or direction information. The timestamp and location stamp, particularly when automatically generated, may be used as verification that the media file was stored at a particular time and place, such as the time and place where the report associated with the media file was created. The direction stamp may be used as verification that the media file was created while a media capture device was facing in a particular direction or otherwise had a particular orientation. The location, time and/or direction data used for the location stamp, timestamp and/or direction stamp may originate from the computing device on which geo-referenced electronic drawing application is installed, any other computing device. For example, the computing device may be GPS-enabled and may include a timer and a compass. Alternatively, the location, time and/or direction data may be based on manual data entry by the user. It should be appreciated that the media file need not be modified to include the location, time and/or direction data described above, as the data may alternatively be stored in association with the media file as distinct data.
As discussed herein, the computing device 140 shown in
In certain embodiments, central server 616 of networked system 600 may include a collection of historical reports 626, which are records of reports 132 that have been processed in the past. In one example, in the context of vehicle accident reports, historical reports 626 may be useful to inform current reports 132, such as current accident reports that are being processed. For example, being able to review historical information pertaining to a certain intersection may be useful to add to an accident report for fault analysis purposes, as certain trends may become apparent. For example, historical reports 626 may indicate for a certain highway or street intersection that a steep hill is present, the traffic light malfunctions, the line of site to the stop sign is obstructed, there is a poor angle of visibility at the intersection, the intersection is an accident prone area in poor weather conditions (e.g., a bridge approaching the intersection freezes over), and the like. Referring again to step 526 of method 500 of
In operation, each user of networked system 600 may access geo-referenced electronic drawing application 100 via his/her local computing device 140. Networked system 600 may provide a secure login function, which allows users 612 to access the functions of geo-referenced electronic drawing application 100. Once authorized, users 612 may open drawing tool GUI 122 using, for example, the web browsers of their computing devices 140. Geographic location information is read into or manually entered into drawing tool GUI 122 and event-specific images 126, image series 130, and/or reports 132 may be generated as described with reference to
Referring again to
In summary and referring to
Further, geo-referenced electronic drawing application 100 of the present disclosure provides the ability to electronically mark up real world geo-referenced images with symbols, shapes, and/or lines to scale, again providing improved accuracy and consistent accuracy with respect to drawings that support incident reports.
Further, geo-referenced electronic drawing application 100 of the present disclosure provides a standard symbols library, such as symbols library 114, thereby providing standardization with respect to drawings that support incident reports.
Further, networked systems that include geo-referenced electronic drawing application 100 of the present disclosure, such as networked system 600, provide improved distribution, tracking, and auditing of reports among entities and provide improved control over access to reports.
CONCLUSIONWhile various inventive embodiments have been described and illustrated herein, those of ordinary skill in the art will readily envision a variety of other means and/or structures for performing the function and/or obtaining the results and/or one or more of the advantages described herein, and each of such variations and/or modifications is deemed to be within the scope of the inventive embodiments described herein. More generally, those skilled in the art will readily appreciate that all parameters, dimensions, materials, and configurations described herein are meant to be exemplary and that the actual parameters, dimensions, materials, and/or configurations will depend upon the specific application or applications for which the inventive teachings is/are used. Those skilled in the art will recognize, or be able to ascertain using no more than routine experimentation, many equivalents to the specific inventive embodiments described herein. It is, therefore, to be understood that the foregoing embodiments are presented by way of example only and that, within the scope of the appended claims and equivalents thereto, inventive embodiments may be practiced otherwise than as specifically described and claimed. Inventive embodiments of the present disclosure are directed to each individual feature, system, article, material, kit, and/or method described herein. In addition, any combination of two or more such features, systems, articles, materials, kits, and/or methods, if such features, systems, articles, materials, kits, and/or methods are not mutually inconsistent, is included within the inventive scope of the present disclosure.
The above-described embodiments can be implemented in any of numerous ways. For example, the embodiments may be implemented using hardware, software or a combination thereof. When implemented in software, the software code can be executed on any suitable processor or collection of processors, whether provided in a single computer or distributed among multiple computers.
Further, it should be appreciated that a computer may be embodied in any of a number of forms, such as a rack-mounted computer, a desktop computer, a laptop computer, or a tablet computer. Additionally, a computer may be embedded in a device not generally regarded as a computer but with suitable processing capabilities, including a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), a smart phone or any other suitable portable or fixed electronic device.
Also, a computer may have one or more input and output devices. These devices can be used, among other things, to present a user interface. Examples of output devices that can be used to provide a user interface include printers or display screens for visual presentation of output and speakers or other sound generating devices for audible presentation of output. Examples of input devices that can be used for a user interface include keyboards, and pointing devices, such as mice, touch pads, and digitizing tablets. As another example, a computer may receive input information through speech recognition or in other audible format.
Such computers may be interconnected by one or more networks in any suitable form, including a local area network or a wide area network, such as an enterprise network, and intelligent network (IN) or the Internet. Such networks may be based on any suitable technology and may operate according to any suitable protocol and may include wireless networks, wired networks or fiber optic networks.
The various methods or processes outlined herein may be coded as software that is executable on one or more processors that employ any one of a variety of operating systems or platforms. Additionally, such software may be written using any of a number of suitable programming languages and/or programming or scripting tools, and also may be compiled as executable machine language code or intermediate code that is executed on a framework or virtual machine.
In this respect, various inventive concepts may be embodied as a computer readable storage medium (or multiple computer readable storage media) (e.g., a computer memory, one or more floppy discs, compact discs, optical discs, magnetic tapes, flash memories, circuit configurations in Field Programmable Gate Arrays or other semiconductor devices, or other non-transitory medium or tangible computer storage medium) encoded with one or more programs that, when executed on one or more computers or other processors, perform methods that implement the various embodiments of the invention discussed above. The computer readable medium or media can be transportable, such that the program or programs stored thereon can be loaded onto one or more different computers or other processors to implement various aspects of the present invention as discussed above.
The terms “program” or “software” are used herein in a generic sense to refer to any type of computer code or set of computer-executable instructions that can be employed to program a computer or other processor to implement various aspects of embodiments as discussed above. Additionally, it should be appreciated that according to one aspect, one or more computer programs that when executed perform methods of the present invention need not reside on a single computer or processor, but may be distributed in a modular fashion amongst a number of different computers or processors to implement various aspects of the present invention.
Computer-executable instructions may be in many forms, such as program modules, executed by one or more computers or other devices. Generally, program modules include routines, programs, objects, components, data structures, etc. that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types. Typically the functionality of the program modules may be combined or distributed as desired in various embodiments.
Also, data structures may be stored in computer-readable media in any suitable form. For simplicity of illustration, data structures may be shown to have fields that are related through location in the data structure. Such relationships may likewise be achieved by assigning storage for the fields with locations in a computer-readable medium that convey relationship between the fields. However, any suitable mechanism may be used to establish a relationship between information in fields of a data structure, including through the use of pointers, tags or other mechanisms that establish relationship between data elements.
Also, various inventive concepts may be embodied as one or more methods, of which an example has been provided. The acts performed as part of the method may be ordered in any suitable way. Accordingly, embodiments may be constructed in which acts are performed in an order different than illustrated, which may include performing some acts simultaneously, even though shown as sequential acts in illustrative embodiments.
All definitions, as defined and used herein, should be understood to control over dictionary definitions, definitions in documents incorporated by reference, and/or ordinary meanings of the defined terms.
The indefinite articles “a” and “an,” as used herein in the specification and in the claims, unless clearly indicated to the contrary, should be understood to mean “at least one.”
The phrase “and/or,” as used herein in the specification and in the claims, should be understood to mean “either or both” of the elements so conjoined, i.e., elements that are conjunctively present in some cases and disjunctively present in other cases. Multiple elements listed with “and/or” should be construed in the same fashion, i.e., “one or more” of the elements so conjoined. Other elements may optionally be present other than the elements specifically identified by the “and/or” clause, whether related or unrelated to those elements specifically identified. Thus, as a non-limiting example, a reference to “A and/or B”, when used in conjunction with open-ended language such as “comprising” can refer, in one embodiment, to A only (optionally including elements other than B); in another embodiment, to B only (optionally including elements other than A); in yet another embodiment, to both A and B (optionally including other elements); etc.
As used herein in the specification and in the claims, “or” should be understood to have the same meaning as “and/or” as defined above. For example, when separating items in a list, “or” or “and/or” shall be interpreted as being inclusive, i.e., the inclusion of at least one, but also including more than one, of a number or list of elements, and, optionally, additional unlisted items. Only terms clearly indicated to the contrary, such as “only one of” or “exactly one of,” or, when used in the claims, “consisting of,” will refer to the inclusion of exactly one element of a number or list of elements. In general, the term “or” as used herein shall only be interpreted as indicating exclusive alternatives (i.e. “one or the other but not both”) when preceded by terms of exclusivity, such as “either,” “one of,” “only one of,” or “exactly one of.” “Consisting essentially of,” when used in the claims, shall have its ordinary meaning as used in the field of patent law.
As used herein in the specification and in the claims, the phrase “at least one,” in reference to a list of one or more elements, should be understood to mean at least one element selected from any one or more of the elements in the list of elements, but not necessarily including at least one of each and every element specifically listed within the list of elements and not excluding any combinations of elements in the list of elements. This definition also allows that elements may optionally be present other than the elements specifically identified within the list of elements to which the phrase “at least one” refers, whether related or unrelated to those elements specifically identified. Thus, as a non-limiting example, “at least one of A and B” (or, equivalently, “at least one of A or B,” or, equivalently “at least one of A and/or B”) can refer, in one embodiment, to at least one, optionally including more than one, A, with no B present (and optionally including elements other than B); in another embodiment, to at least one, optionally including more than one, B, with no A present (and optionally including elements other than A); in yet another embodiment, to at least one, optionally including more than one, A, and at least one, optionally including more than one, B (and optionally including other elements); etc.
In the claims, as well as in the specification above, all transitional phrases such as “comprising,” “including,” “carrying,” “having,” “containing,” “involving,” “holding,” “composed of,” and the like are to be understood to be open-ended, i.e., to mean including but not limited to. Only the transitional phrases “consisting of” and “consisting essentially of” shall be closed or semi-closed transitional phrases, respectively, as set forth in the United States Patent Office Manual of Patent Examining Procedures, Section 2111.03.
Claims
1. An apparatus for documenting an incident at an incident site, the apparatus comprising:
- a communication interface;
- a display device;
- at least one user input device;
- a memory to store processor-executable instructions; and
- a processing unit communicatively coupled to the communication interface, the display device, the at least one user input device, and the memory, wherein upon execution of the processor-executable instructions by the processing unit, the processing unit: controls the communication interface to electronically receive source data representing at least one input image of a geographic area including the incident site; controls the display device to display at least a portion of the at least one input image; acquires first user input from the at least one user input device to provide a first representation of at least a portion of the incident at a first time on the at least one input image; generates a first marked-up digital image including the first representation based on the first user input; acquires second user input from the at least one user input device to provide a second representation of at least a portion of the incident at a second time on the at least one input image; generates a second marked-up digital image including the second representation based on the second user input; and further controls the communication interface and/or the memory to electronically transmit and/or electronically store information relating to the first and second marked-up digital images so as to document the incident at different times with respect to the geographic area.
2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processing unit:
- acquires third user input from the at least one user input device, the third user input indicating an estimate of the first time; and
- further controls the communication interface and/or the memory to electronically transmit and/or electronically store the estimate of the first time in association with the information relating to the first marked-up digital image so as to document an estimated time corresponding to the first representation.
3. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the processing unit:
- acquires fourth user input from the at least one user input device, the fourth user input indicating an estimate of the second time; and
- further controls the communication interface and/or the memory to electronically transmit and/or electronically store the estimate of the second time in association with the information relating to the second marked-up digital image so as to document an estimated time corresponding to the second representation.
4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processing unit:
- acquires third user input from the at least one user input device, the third user input indicating an estimate of the first time; and
- modifies the first marked-up digital image to include the estimate of the first time.
5. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the processing unit:
- acquires fourth user input from the at least one user input device, the fourth user input indicating an estimate of the second time; and
- modifies the second marked-up digital image to include the estimate of the second time.
6. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processing unit further controls the display device to display a series of images as an animated sequence, the series of images comprising the first and second marked-up digital images.
7. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein the processing unit:
- acquires third user input from the at least one user input device, the third user input indicating an estimate of the first time;
- acquires fourth user input from the at least one user input device, the fourth user input indicating an estimate of the second time; and
- controls the display device to display the first and second marked-up digital images at relative times that are based at least in part on the estimates of the first and second times.
8. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the at least one input image is geo-referenced.
9. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the processing unit:
- scales at least a portion of the first representation and/or second representation based on a scale of the at least one geo-referenced input image.
10. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the at least a portion of the first representation and/or second representation comprises a symbol selected from a symbol library.
11. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the processing unit:
- acquires geographic location information corresponding to the incident site from a global positioning system; and
- acquires, based on the geographic location information, the source data representing the at least one geo-referenced input image of the geographic area including the incident site.
12. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the at least one geo-referenced input image comprises a first geo-referenced input image, and wherein the processing unit:
- generates, using geo-reference data associated with the first geo-referenced input image, a second geo-referenced input image having a different perspective than the first geo-referenced input image.
13. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein:
- the incident involves a vehicle; and
- the first representation comprises a representation of the vehicle.
14. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the processing unit:
- scales the representation of the vehicle based on a scale of the at least one input image.
15. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the processing unit:
- selects a vehicle symbol corresponding to the vehicle from a plurality of vehicle symbols in a symbol library; and
- wherein the first representation comprises the selected vehicle symbol.
16. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the processing unit:
- selects the vehicle symbol based on a vehicle identification number of the vehicle.
17. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein the incident involves a vehicular incident, and wherein the processing unit:
- controls the communication interface and/or the memory to electronically transmit and/or electronically store a vehicular incident report including the first and second marked-up digital images.
18. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the incident involves a personal injury, and wherein the processing unit:
- controls the communication interface and/or the memory to electronically transmit and/or electronically store a personal injury report including the first and second marked-up digital images.
19. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the incident involves property damage, and wherein the processing unit:
- controls the communication interface and/or the memory to electronically transmit and/or electronically store a property damage report including the first and second marked-up digital images.
20. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the incident involves police-investigated activity, and wherein the processing unit:
- controls the communication interface and/or the memory to electronically transmit and/or electronically store a police report including the first and second marked-up digital images.
21. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processing unit:
- controls the communication interface and/or the memory to electronically transmit and/or electronically store an incident report including the first and second marked-up digital images.
22. The apparatus of claim 21, wherein the processing unit:
- controls the communication interface and/or the memory to electronically transmit and/or electronically store a descriptor file comprising: information identifying the incident report; and information identifying the first and second marked-up digital images.
23. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processing unit:
- controls the display device to display a symbol palette, the symbol palette comprising a selection of symbols for depicting objects and/or events.
24. The apparatus of claim 23, wherein the selection of symbols comprises at least one landmark symbol.
25. The apparatus of claim 23, wherein the selection of symbols comprises at least one vehicle symbol.
26. The apparatus of claim 23, wherein the selection of symbols comprises at least one person symbol.
27. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processing unit:
- controls the display device to display a sketching palette, the sketching palette comprising a selection of renderable shapes.
28. A method for documenting an incident at an incident site, the method comprising:
- A) receiving source data representing at least one input image of a geographic area including the incident site;
- B) processing the source data so as to display at least a portion of the at least one input image on a display device;
- C) receiving first user input via at least one user input device associated with the display device;
- D) processing the first user input so as to display, on the display device, a first marked-up digital image including a first representation of at least a portion of the incident at a first time on the at least one input image;
- E) receiving second user input via the at least one user input device;
- F) processing the second user input so as to display, on the display device, a second marked-up digital image including a second representation of at least a portion of the incident at a second time on the at least one input image; and
- G) electronically transmitting and/or electronically storing information relating to the first and second marked-up digital images so as to document the incident at different times with respect to the geographic area.
29. At least one computer-readable medium encoded with instructions that, when executed on at least one processing unit, perform a method for documenting an incident at an incident site, the method comprising:
- A) receiving source data representing at least one input image of a geographic area including the incident site;
- B) processing the source data so as to display at least a portion of the at least one input image on a display device;
- C) receiving first user input via at least one user input device associated with the display device;
- D) processing the first user input so as to display, on the display device, a first marked-up digital image including a first representation of at least a portion of the incident at a first time on the at least one input image;
- E) receiving second user input via the at least one user input device;
- F) processing the second user input so as to display, on the display device, a second marked-up digital image including a second representation of at least a portion of the incident at a second time on the at least one input image; and
- G) electronically transmitting and/or electronically storing information relating to the first and second marked-up digital images so as to document the incident at different times with respect to the geographic area.
Type: Application
Filed: Apr 2, 2010
Publication Date: Oct 7, 2010
Applicant: CertusView Technologies, LLC (Palm Beach Gardens, FL)
Inventors: Steven Nielsen (North Palm Beach, FL), Curtis Chambers (Palm Beach Gardens, FL), Jeffrey Farr (Jupiter, FL)
Application Number: 12/753,687
International Classification: G06Q 10/00 (20060101); G01S 19/42 (20100101);