Live video analysis
Richard Miller
Revolution powers our entire golf training kiosk. Our kiosk runs under Windows XP Embedded. The OS does just one thing: runs the Revolution program upon startup.
Our device uses no keyboard or mouse...only a touch screen. That alone implies the screens will be simple. Further, many of our users (ordinary golfers of all ages) have little or no computer experience, but must be able to use our system from the get go without any particular instruction (let alone a manual). So the screens must be kept as simple as possible, while still providing a wide range of functionality.
We chose Revolution because it offered a fast development environment, extremely quick and easy modification to our program on an ongoing basis, and good quality performance under a rather intensive set of conditions. We have also always been impressed with the speed at which technical issues are addressed by the staff at Revolution, as well as access to specialized programming services for construction and modification of DLL's.
Revolution has satisfied all our needs for flexibility, development speed and performance.
By using Revolution, our patent-pending device and software was constructed in a manner that lets us quickly modify our application from golf to numerous other sport and non-sport activities. It is Revolution's ease of use, flexibility, rapid development environment, and access to DLL's that gives us all the power we need to stay in front of the curve and create a successful business.
Our battery operated kiosk uses a 17" high bright (sun-readable) screen. It is controlled via touch screen only. Our software is activated via a smartcard or magnetic card. Attached to the kiosk are two firewire-based cameras feeding 640x480 full color live video at 30 frames per second into our program. The video is compressed on the fly via software only so that one full hour can be written to one 8x-recording DVD in under 10 minutes.
Our system controls two external video cameras, a smartcard/magnetic card reader, and a DVD recorder, all from within Revolution...and with just the press of a button or two. Controlling these devices required the use of DLL's. The technical staff at Revolution created a high quality DLL to access and control the cameras, giving us exactly the features and performance we needed. The two separate companies supplying the card reader and DVD control software quickly received the guidance they needed from Revolution technical staff to modify their DLL's to work with Revolution.
We have made countless modifications to our program over the past 18 months, and will continue to modify all of our software for years to come. The nature of our device requires constant, monthly software updates.
Revolution has not only saved us an enormous amount of programming time and effort, but actually made it feasible for us to undertake this venture on a relatively small budget with limited staff.