SITUATIONAL AWARENESS

• US 20130039542A1
• Filed: 10/16/2012
• Published: 02/14/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 04/28/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Getac Technology Corporation, WHP Workflow Solutions Inc (Getac Technology Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Whp Workflow Solutions, LLC
• Inventors: Guzik, Thomas
• Granted Patent: US 9,760,573 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/103
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/487 using geographical or spatial information, e.g. location
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/034 on discs G11B27/036, G11B27/038 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/322 used signal is digitally coded
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 2201/3225 of data relating to an image, a page or a document
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 2201/3247 Data linking a set of images to one another, e.g. sequence, burst or continuous capture mode
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/661 Transmitting camera control signals through networks, e.g. control via the Internet
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/185 by embedding added-value information into content, e.g. geo-tagging

Abstract

Police officers are provided with client devices capable of capturing multimedia and streaming multimedia. The client devices can upload captured multimedia to a central server or share streams in real time. A network operation center can review the multimedia in real time or afterwards. Situational awareness is the provision of multimedia to a police officer as that officer approaches the location of an incident. The multimedia may be real time streams as the officer responds to a particular location, or the multimedia may be historical files as the officer familiarizes himself with incidents as he patrols a new neighborhood. Since the client device also reports real time reporting patterns, police officers can review high resolution and fidelity patrolling and incident reports to analyze the efficacy of patrol coverage. Since the client device may run supplementary applications, example applications are disclosed.

Claims

1. A method of reviewing geolocation specific multimedia files, the method comprising:

receiving multimedia file filtering criteria;

repeatedly determining from a mobile client, the present geolocation of the mobile client; and

for each time the present geolocation is determined,

querying a data store of references to multimedia files with the present geolocation and the filtering criteria;

retrieving at least one multimedia file that satisfies the filtering criteria and is within a predetermined distance from the present geolocation; and

displaying a retrieved multimedia file.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein, the filtering criteria include any one of the following:

a time range;

an event type;

a case number;

an identity of a person who captured a multimedia file; and

a multimedia file metadata tag value.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein, the retrieved multimedia files are associated with a case, and the method further comprises:

along with each retrieved multimedia file, retrieving the retrieved multimedia file'"'"'s respective case data; and

along with displaying the multimedia file, displaying at least some of the displayed multimedia file'"'"'s retrieved respective case data.

4. The method of claim 1, the method further comprising:

receiving user commentary via the mobile client, the user commentary related to the displayed multimedia file; and

transmitting the user commentary and the reference of the displayed multimedia file, for associating the user commentary and the displayed multimedia file in the data store.

5. The method of claim 1, where querying the data store comprises:

determining whether user input to change the filtering criteria has been received;

when user input to change the filtering criteria has been received,

changing the filtering criteria according to the user input; and

querying a data store of references to multimedia files with the present geolocation and the changed filtering criteria;

otherwise querying a data store of references to multimedia files with the present geolocation and the unchanged filtering criteria.

6. The method of claim 1, where displaying the retrieved multimedia file comprises:

displaying a thumbnail summary of the multimedia file to be displayed;

receiving user input to render the multimedia file to be displayed; and

responsive to receiving user input to render the multimedia file, rendering the multimedia file to be displayed.

7. The method of claim 1, the method further comprising:

receiving user input to store a local copy of the multimedia file currently being displayed; and

responsive receiving user input to store a local copy of the multimedia file

downloading a copy of the multimedia file currently being displayed based on the reference of the multimedia file currently being displayed, and

storing the copy of the multimedia file on the mobile client.

8. A method of reviewing geolocation specific multimedia files, the method comprising:

determining from a mobile client, the present geolocation of the mobile client and a date time stamp;

querying a data store of references to multimedia files with the present geolocation and the date time stamp;

retrieving at least one multimedia file that is within a predetermined distance from the present geolocation and at or after the date time stamp; and

displaying a retrieved multimedia file.

9. The method of claim 8, the method further comprising:

periodically polling the data store, the polling comprising;

querying a data store of references to multimedia files with the present geolocation and the date time stamp;

retrieving at least one other multimedia file that has not already been retrieved and is within a predetermined distance from the present geolocation and at or after the date time stamp; and

displaying the other multimedia file.

10. The method of claim 8, where displaying the retrieved multimedia file comprises:

displaying a thumbnail summary of the multimedia file to be displayed;

receiving user input to render the multimedia file to be displayed; and

responsive to receiving user input to render the multimedia file, rendering the multimedia file to be displayed.

11. The method of claim 8, the method further comprising:

receiving user commentary via the mobile client, the user commentary related to the displayed multimedia file; and

transmitting the user commentary and the reference of the displayed multimedia file, for associating the user commentary and the displayed multimedia file in the data store.

12. The method of claim 8, the method further comprising:

receiving user input indicating that the displayed multimedia file is not relevant;

responsive to receiving user input indicating that the displayed multimedia file is not relevant, storing the reference of the multimedia file in a do not display list; and

wherein the displaying the retrieved multimedia file comprises;

creating a list of candidate multimedia files to display comprised of multimedia files that are a predetermined distance from the present geolocation and at or after the date time stamp,

removing from the list of candidate multimedia files any multimedia files in the do not display list, and

displaying a multimedia file in the list of remaining candidate multimedia files.

13. The method of claim 8, the method further comprising:

receiving multimedia file filtering criteria; and

wherein the querying a data store of references to multimedia files is with the present geolocation, the date time stamp and the received multimedia file filtering criteria.

14. The method of claim 13, where querying the data store comprises:

determining whether user input to change the filtering criteria has been received;

when user input to change the filtering criteria has been received,

changing the filtering criteria according to the user input; and

querying a data store of references to multimedia files with the present geolocation, the date time stamp and the changed filtering criteria;

otherwise querying a data store of references to multimedia files with the present geolocation, the date time stamp and the unchanged filtering criteria

15. A mobile client apparatus to review geolocation specific multimedia files comprising:

a user input device;

a geolocation device;

a wireless communications device;

a display;

a software querying component operative to receive multimedia file filtering criteria via the user input device, to obtain a present geolocation of the mobile client from the geolocation device, and to send a query comprising the filtering criteria and the present geolocation over the wireless communications device;

the query component further operative to receive multimedia file references in response to a sent query,

and the display operative to display at least one of the multimedia files whose reference was received in response to a sent query.

16. The apparatus of claim 15, the apparatus further comprising:

a date time stamp device;

wherein the querying component is further operative to obtain a date time stamp from the date time stamp device; and

the querying component is further operative to send a query comprising the date time stamp in addition to the filtering criteria and the present geolocation over the wireless communications device.

17. The apparatus of claim 15, the apparatus further comprising:

a multimedia capture device;

a software multimedia capture component operative to capture multimedia files, and to upload captured multimedia files over the wireless communications device.

18. The apparatus of claim 17, wherein the multimedia capture device is any one of the following:

a video camera, a still image digital camera or an audio recorder.

19. The apparatus of claim 15, the apparatus further comprising:

a software multimedia download component operative to determine the reference of a multimedia file currently being displayed, and to download the multimedia file corresponding to the reference over the wireless connection.

20. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the user input device is any one of a touch screen, a multiple touch screen, a keyboard and a mouse.

21. A method of displaying incidents in a geographical area, the method comprising:

receiving a geolocation identifier;

retrieving incidents from a repository, the retrieved incidents relating to the received geolocation identifier and wherein each retrieved incident is associated with a multimedia file and an incident report;

displaying at least one of the retrieved incidents as an incident indicator on a digital map such that selecting the incident indicator will activate either the multimedia file or the incident report.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein the retrieving incidents comprises storing local copies of the incident reports corresponding to the retrieved incidents;

and

the method further comprises;

receiving a filtering criterion; and

wherein the displaying comprises;

displaying only incidents stored as local copies based at least on the filtering criterion.

23. The method of claim 22, the method further comprising:

calculating a metric for the displayed filtered incidents; and

displaying the calculated metric.

24. The method of claim 21, the method further comprises:

receiving an overlay selection, the overlay selection corresponding to a parameter; and

wherein the displaying comprises displaying either color or patterning overlaid on the digital map based at least on the parameter.

25. The method of claim 24, the method further comprising:

calculating statistics correlating the displayed incidents against the overlay selection parameter; and

displaying at least one of the calculated statistics.

26. The method of claim 25, wherein the calculated statistics is any one of:

ratio of population density to number incidents; and

ratio of law enforcement coverage to number of incidents.

27. A method of retrieving information relating to a recognized object, the method comprising:

tracking a target with a multimedia capture device;

capturing an image of the target with the multimedia capture device;

identifying a portion of interest in the captured image via software object recognition;

performing a software zoom onto the identified portion of interest;

interpreting the portion of interest; and

identifying records of interest based at least on the interpreted portion of interest.

28. The method of claim 27, wherein the target is a licensed vehicle, the portion of interest is the portion of the captured image corresponding to a license plate, and wherein the interpreting the portion of interest comprises:

performing character recognition on the license plate portion of the captured image and interpreting the recognized characters as a license plate number;

and wherein the identifying records of interest is in identifying incident records corresponding to the interpreted license plate number.

29. The method of claim 28 wherein the identified records of interest correspond to at least one incident report and to at least one multimedia file;

the method further comprising;

retrieving at least one identified record of interest;

receiving a selection of at least one retrieved record of interest; and

activating either the multimedia file or the incident report corresponding to the selected record of interest.