End of the collaborative French research program SURVIE : Visibility Measurement (December 31, 2012)

NEXYAD was the head of a collaborative research program on visibility measurement, using the tool VisiNex.

This research program showed a complete correlation between VisiNex measurements and human panel of observers, and could develop new modules for VisiNex and new protocols of measurement.

Partners : NEXYAD, AXIMUM, VALEO, SAINT GOBAIN, IFFSTAR

Link: http://www.viameca.fr/assets/files/maj%20fiches%202012/04%20Fiche%205%20SIR%20Survie.pdf

Closing meeting of the collaborative research project SURVIE : 2012 June 28 in Paris (June 13, 2012)

The closing meeting of the collaborative research project SURVIE will take place the 28th of June 2012, in the Région Ile de France office in Paris.

SURVIE dealt with measurement of visibility during recovery (wipers, lights, demist, defrost, etc …). Measurement was performed using the onl device in the worl that can measure visibility for a human being ; VisiNex Developed par the company Nexyad.

The project gathered Saint Gobain, Valeo, CETE Lyon laboratory (Clermont Ferrand Lab), Oktal, Aximum, Nexyad.

Project Purpose: Research on the technical ways to improve or restore visibility to the driver, and development of new functionalities of VisiNex.

Several innovative measurement functionalities could be integrated to VisiNex by Nexyad, allowing partners to improve their understanding of visibility recovery in many cases of real world scenes.

This research program got the label of the French competitive cluster on automotive and transportation mov’eo.

New release of the NEXYAD VisiNex (May 10, 2012)

A new release of the NEXYAD VisiNex™ (*) tool is available and brings more functionalities : can deal with vibrations (due to artificial wind for instance), can deal with occultations (dirt, frost, …), geographical mapping of visibility (that lets show the dynamic of visibility recovery), measurements with the car lightning as light source.

(*) : visibility measurement for automotive and transportation applications : wipers, lightning, windshield, sign marks, …)

NEXYAD developed a new release of their VisiNex™ product (March 7, 2011)

NEXYAD developed a new release of their VisiNex™ product (visibility measurement using a camera) : new version can give local visibility scores and their distribution on the whole windshield of a car (applications are wipers efficiency enhancement and misting system efficiency measurement and enhancement for car industry).

MOV’EO SURVIE and VisiNex™ (April 30, 2010)

Work meeting of the research project SURVIE:
Definition of standard rules of measurement with the NEXYAD product VisiNex™ for road safety applications.

partners: LCPC, LRPC , VALEO, SAINT GOBAIN, CETE Lyon, OKTAL, AXIMUM

Visibility measurement (February 28, 2010)

Measuring the visibility of a scene for a human being needs to have a mathematical model of the human vision system.

Actually, human vision requires some compromise between measurable characteristics of image quality such as contrast, depth, and object size, so as to detect, recognize, and identify the content of collected images.

When this compromise is not met, the vision becomes very difficult, tedious or even impossible.
It is obvious that the noise in the image (electronic snow of a sensor, for example), or poor contrast (due to the presence of aerosols, fog, rain, humidity, …) may considerably lower the performance of our vision system.

We can therefore say that this « images quality » is a key point of our performance.
But we do not need the same quality to detect all types of objects. For example, we will detect a gray cloud on a gray background, even shapeless, with extremely low contrast if the luminance depth (number of bits for a digital image) is high. On the opposite, on a dark sky, we can detect a star whose contrast is extremely strong, but whose size is at the limit of our eye angular accuracy. In such a case we just need 2 luminance levels (binary images are OK).

Human vision mathematical models were originally developed by the U.S. Department of Defense who wanted to model the impact of camouflage on the probability of detection (of an infantryman, a tank, …), recognition, and identification by a watchman.

“Detection” means « I see something ».
“Recognition” means « I see a car. »
“Identification means « I see a 3 serie BMW »

Of course, it is obvious that the level of detail needed to perform these three operations is not the same.
Measurable criteria in the picture (example: Johnson criteria) could be determined after testing a variety of situations by panels of hundreds of soldiers.

Based on these criteria, it is possible to construct a mathematical model for measuring perceived quality of images. This model is predictive of the ability to detect or to understand the image content.
NEXYAD has developed such a mathematical model of human vision and applied it, among other things, to test the effectiveness of windshields wiping systems of vehicles (product : VisiNex ™) : the rain that collects on the windshield breeze down the performance of visual detection of the driver. Each pass of the wiper can restore some lost visibility.

NEXYAD is currently applying this same maths model in the context of the extent of visibility of road markings (white lines, …), depending on the weather (day / night, rain, …).
The number and scope of potential applications of such a human vision mathematical modelling system are extremely broad.

MOV’EO SURVIE (October 15, 2009)

Kick off of the research project SURVIE:
Definition of standard rules of measurement with the NEXYAD product VisiNex™ for road safety applications.

partners: LCPC, LRPC , VALEO, SAINT GOBAIN, CETE Lyon, OKTAL, AXIMUM