ANN ARBOR – Ann Arbor IT Zone member Pixel Velocity was granted a new patent on July 4 for a software process that could help create smarter, faster devices such as intelligent surveillance cameras.
The fine print is the patent will make it easier to convert a software algorithm into hardware realization or as Pixel Velocity CTO David McCubbrey says, “A lot of things that they’ve never seen before will become practical for the first time because we can put the equivalent of 100 to 1000 PCs to work all in the space of a single hand-held camera. We can build a much higher level of ability for a computer to figure out what’s in its image.”
The patent could make a surveillance camera very smart, he says. The camera could monitor an area at night to make sure no one was trespassing, but be smart enough to know when the neighbor’s dog walks into the area so as not to trigger an alarm.
For programmers the patent automates the conversion of a program to do image processing, which converts it to pure hardware. Once it is converted, it will run faster, but at lower power.
In technical terms, the patent involves a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), or a big collection of electrically connectable logic gates (the same sort of logic gates that make microprocessors). The software figures out how to electrically connect millions of logic gates inside the FPGA to make a circuit that does a single function. If you build a circuit out of pure logic, it does just one thing very efficiently.
What the new patent will mean for Pixel Velocity has yet to be determined, McCubbrey said. The technology will be used in-house, but the company has not yet decided if it will be licensed or not.
