Home On The Range (Military Range that is)

Military ranges such as China Lake and Aberdeen Testing Grounds perform a vital role in ensuring that our military is provided with tried and true equipment that has undergone intense scrutiny. The ranges have full time staff devoted to video acquisition and analysis of tests. Much of their visual acquisition equipment is decades old yet the military and civilian personnel continue to do their work serving our country in a vital manner.

The demands of the ranges for visual recording would seem to be pretty straight forward. After all, it would seem they just need video record of tests such as demolitions, on target footage (accuracy), speed and velocity, etc. Once you list out particular events required to be captured and the speed that these events take place it becomes clear that this is not a trivial task.
 

Fortunately there are various camera companies that provide very high quality sensors for high speed and multi spectrum visual acquisition (Vision Research, Flir, Fastec, PhotonFocus, and others). Sometimes tests do not even require the ultra high speed these cameras require thus the ranges can control budgets with appropriate solutions. Buying for the appropriate solution has saved money but has caused new challenges.

Over time the ranges have accumulated almost every type of camera with just about every type of input you can imagine. Normally, the range tests need to be recorded from multiple cameras in order to capture the event from many different angles. Here’s where the challenges begin (but certainly do not end). Recording data from various sources with different interfaces into a single solution that can acquire high speed data is no simple task. Although computer systems have advanced rapidly over the past 10 years we are still nowhere near throwing together various components to make a homegrown solution able to handle very high throughput with 100% reliability maintaining complete data integrity. Add to this required features that make the recordings useful – such as frame by frame correlation and synchronization, time stamping, raw uncompressed recording, image calibration, etc and you add even more complexity.

So where do you turn if you are one of the ranges? The answer is Boulder Imaging. Not only has Boulder Imaging served the range, military/defense, and security sectors for over 15 years they also produce the most advanced high performance digital video recorder (HPDVR) that exists. Boulder Imaging makes solutions that are highly flexible and capable to grow as needs change and adapt as well as provide the ranges with a one stop shop. BI’s Quazar systems’ flexibility provides for system repurposing which has led to significant cost savings, avoiding the purchase of addition systems. Additionally, BI provides lighting and cameras and optics from every quality manufacturer. That ability alone has made them the vendor of choice for the ranges.

As you can imagine the ranges record hundreds and even thousands of events annually. Think about the data storage, retrieval, and archiving issues associated with such recordings. Seeing the needs of the ranges, Boulder Imaging has led the way in the development of customized meta tagging and video workflow process integration into their Quazar solutions. The workflow innovations alone that BI has introduced can save tens of thousands of hours of manual processes per year.

“What we have learned from our experiences with the ranges has allowed us to develop complete solutions for ranges and other industries/sectors thus providing very diverse and highly complex applications,” states Carlos Jorquera, CEO. “We are extremely proud of our Quazar solution because of its flexible and advanced capabilities. Being the only US manufacturer of HPDVRs that meet the ranges requirements is a position that we plan on maintaining well into the future.”