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[masrscb9] 07/2/2008 02:34

4yr Project started this month:

DEXMART Project
European Commission | Robotic | Press Releases | * | English

"DEXMART" is an acronym and stands for "DEXterous and autonomous dual-arm/hand robotic manipulation with sMART sensory-motor skills: A bridge from natural to artificial cognition".

DEXMART is a large-scale integrating project ICT-216239 which is funded under the SEVENTH FRAMEWORK PROGRAMME(01/02/2008 - 31/01/2012) of the European Union, Challenge 2: Cognitive Systems, Interaction, Robotics. The project will start on the 1st of February, 2008 and last for four years.

DEXMART has the ambition to fill the gap between the use of robots in industrial environments and the use of future robots in everyday human and unstructured environments, contributing to reinforce European competitiveness in all those domains of personal and service robotics where dexterous and autonomous dual-hand manipulation capabilities are required.

[masrscb9] 07/2/2008 02:31

This post is earlier...



Flintshire opts for data collection from Yotta DCL

05 February 2008, 12:58pm

Oxford, UK - Yotta DCL's cutting edge automatic inventory surveying service has proven successful for Flintshire County Council's highways department. A trail of Yotta DCL's intelligent highway data collection service on 100km of Flintshire's B-class roads has resulted in the Council issuing a further order for surveying the remainder of the entire 1200km network. This will give Flintshire County Council an accurate comprehensive inventory map of its assets, which will assist it with developing and deploying its Highway Asset Management Programme.

"We identified gaps in our inventory and needed to fill these before we could progress to the next stage of improving the efficiency of our network management. We were made aware of Yotta DCL's innovative approach and took up several references from other authorities that proved highly satisfactory. The price for the digital survey was also attractive, being more cost-effective to alternative services. We agreed to a 100km trial on our B roads so that we could ascertain how easily the data output from Yotta DCL's Nano software would integrate with our Mayrise highways system," says Mark Middleton, Network Asset Manager, Flintshire County Council.

"With Mayrise, each road is given an unique street reference number that we needed to link to inventory captured by Yotta DCL. We are very pleased to say that Yotta DCL was able to do this and hence we will now survey the rest of the network. This will give us a complete view of 5 types of inventory for all A, B, C and unclassified roads: regulatory, advisory and mandatory traffic signs; gulleys and road name plates," continues Mark Middleton.

Yotta DCL uses a specially designed and developed vehicle equipped with six high definition cameras that provide a full street-level view of the highway. The cameras take an image every 2 metres as the vehicle drives along, with the precise position of each image calculated by combining GPS, Inertial and Optical tracking systems with advanced algorithms. These images are processed by Yotta DCL's proprietary software which analyses them pixel-by-pixel to give a highly accurate position and detailed information of each inventory item seen by the cameras on the journey.

Mark Middleton and his team are confident that they will get the results they are looking for from the extended survey and have already entered a bid for funding to capture additional assets from the original inventory capture photography.

[garth] 05/2/2008 07:00

Posting through the night?????

G.

[masrscb9] 05/2/2008 04:07

VICON LAUNCHES NEW PERFORMANCE PACK
Karen Raz February 4th, 2008

Hyper Strobe and 18mm VICON Lens Boost Performance and Fidelity of VICON Motion Capture Systems

VICON, developer of Academy Award®-winning motion capture systems, today announced the Performance Pack comprising a new high powered Hyper Strobe and purpose-built 18mm VICON lens offering VICON motion capture customers more performance, power and fidelity.

VICON Hyper Strobe

The Vicon Performance Pack is designed to enhance VICON motion capture performance for game development studios and visual effects facilities with large systems in place. The Hyper Strobe spreads more light, more evenly across a motion capture volume so that cameras can see further, allowing for easier setup in large stages with smaller markers. The 18mm VICON lens was custom built by VICON specifically for motion capture applications, and together with the Hyper Strobe, allows customers to extend motion capture volumes while decreasing marker sizes yet still yield highly accurate performance data.

18mm Camera Lens

"The Performance Pack is a very exciting development, particularly for VICON customers in games, where detailed facial capture and multi-performer shoots are frequent requirements," said Robin Pengelly, Senior Vice President, Entertainment Division. "With increased camera range, smaller markers can be used to provide more detailed capture data-this more robust marker detection and increased power means that the camera can be operated at faster speeds while retaining optimum image quality."

Although the Performance Pack consists of the Hyper Strobe and the VICON 18mm lens, both products will also be available individually.

About the Hyper Strobe

• The Hyper Strobe will be available with visible red LEDs

• The Hyper Strobe is 2.5 times brighter than standard visible red strobes and 5 times brighter than near infrared strobes, increasing camera range and allowing for smaller marker sizes

• The LED array has been designed to minimize adjustment of software camera parameters during challenging motion capture setups

• New front mounted filter for easy removal

About the VICON 18mm Lens

• First lens Custom lens purpose-built for motion capture

• Provides even coverage ensuring that measured marker size remains more constant regardless of where it is seen in an image

• The lens is backward compatible with all VICON cameras

• Large aperture provides a great view of small markers with a focal length and image circle specifically ideally suited to VEGAS senor equipped cameras such as the VICON F40 and F20 cameras

[masrscb9] 27/1/2008 00:36

Yotta DCL cuts flood risk with gulley surveys

21 January 2008, 2:50pm
Yotta DCL cuts flood risk with gulley surveys

Local authorities are being given a helping hand in maintaining gullies and alleviating the risk of flood due to blockages by using Yotta DCL's precision edge digital inventory surveying service. Using groundbreaking Nano software for extracting gulley asset information from high definition photography, Yotta DCLs service helps highways departments gain a clear and accurate view of all gullies enabling them to target problems.

By importing the data into a GIS (Geographic Information System) highways engineers can construct models showing problem gullies, their precise location and flooding potential. This allows them to assign maintenance to those in need of urgent attention, leaving the rest to planned routine maintenance according to their condition.

The additional benefit of digital asset collection for gulley management programmes is cost reduction. By being able to pro-actively maintain gullies local authorities will reduce the overall cost of maintenance and repair. For example, where gullies throughout an authority are cleaned twice a year in their entirety, highways departments are now able to reduce this number and therefore slash costs.

For the digital survey Yotta DCL uses a specially designed and developed vehicle equipped with six high-resolution cameras that provide a full 360-degree street-level view of the highway. The cameras take a photograph every two metres as the vehicle drives along, with the precise position of the vehicle recorded by a high end GPS Inertial tracking system. These photographs are processed, evaluated and analysed pixel-by-pixel by the Nano software to give a highly accurate view of each inventory item captured on the journey.

www.yotta.tv
Contact David Lowe, Yotta DCL, [phone],
[e-mail]

[masrscb9] 27/1/2008 00:34

Nottinghamshire trials Yotta DCL
18th January 2008
By Steve Evans
Nottinghamshire County Council is using Yotta DCL's nano-technology to map its highway inventory to speed up the process, cut costs and to develop a more accurate picture of the roads in the county.

Nottingham County has about 4,000km of road, most of that unclassified. This mixture of roads presented the council with a problem in terms of mapping the assets. Yotta DCL creates a high-resolution 360-degree photographic survey by using six automated cameras mounted on a specially designed vehicle. The cameras provide a street-level view of the roads and take photos every two metres as the vehicle makes its way around the county. The location of each asset is recorded by GPS.

Traditional methods of surveying road assets included workers manually noting each asset as the moved along the highway. This resulted in slow progress as workers often only managed 2km a day. The process was not very cost-effective and open to human error. Another method was to film the assets and then manually review the footage and note the assets.

Yotta DCL is said to remove the element of human inaccuracy, as well as speeding up the process. The vehicle used by Yotta DCL can drive along roads at normal speed, enabling the surveying to take place quicker than previous surveys.

The trial was conducted on 250km of A, B and C roads in the county. Bernard Younger, service head (Highway Assets), Nottinghamshire County Council, said: "It's a very good system. We gave them a plan of our network and they mapped it all. The trial was successful, it was cost effective compared to other companies and we are now assessing whether to roll it out across the whole county. Mapping the whole county is a mammoth task."

Younger says that the implementation of the new system is linked to the National Street Gazetteer (NSG), a project designed to create a national street map and database of related assets and features for the whole of England and Wales. The project is designed to facilitate joined-up government, whereby departments within a council consult one central reference point, and councils across the country are all linked together.

Younger said: "We are extremely pleased with the results of the trial. Asset management and valuation is becoming an important focus for local authorities. However, asset collection is usually an expensive exercise but Yotta DCL is offering a new way to do this, which is very interesting. We are very excited by this new surveying technique. It is bringing asset collection and inventory management to a completely new dimension."

[skyfoot12] 18/12/2007 23:20

OMG – a small tech play about to go large - BUY
Companies: OMG
17/12/2007

Among the chief executives I've met this year, I've easily been most impressed
by Nick Bolton of OMG, a venture providing sophisticated 'image understanding' products for the entertainment, life science, defence and engineering industries.

Unlike many of his peers, Bolton is funny, engaging, intellectual and often visionary, adopting a sober tone only when delivering his firm's financials – the last set showed turnover up 20 per cent to a record £19.6 million and pre-tax profits up £1.84 million (also a record).

Bolton is also a team player in word as in deed. At my last meeting it was a divisional director who did most of the talking about the company – a rare event in these days of egomaniacal CEOs and overbearing finance directors.

But the most impressive thing about Bolton is the way he has used his firm's cutting-edge technology in core areas as the launch pad for other, more daring initiatives – without sacrificing the bottom line.


OMG's core business is Vicon, which provides motion capture technology to the film, computer games and life sciences market. Stable, growing and still innovative, it accounts for the bulk of sales and almost all the profits.

The technology of this arm has been leveraged into the defence sector via a division called AIG. In essence, it has products to enable unmanned aircraft to better track targets. Deals worth around £0.5 million from the MOD have been bagged.

The technology has also been used to create a digital mapping venture division called Yotta. This arm bought DCL, one of the UK's largest highways surveying businesses (and a profitable one to boot). So now, DCL will profitably conduct surveys of roads and motorways for highway agencies, local authorities and infrastructure management groups – and simultaneously capture vast mapping information for the potentially explosive Yotta arm.

The next year is likely to see Vicon outperform as usual, DCL progress and the other two gather pace. At the current 60.5p (market cap £38 million) the market continues to value the speculative businesses at nothing, and value the other market-leading ventures conservatively. Oh, and OMG also has a cash pile of £6.2 million. Buy.

[bbonsall] 11/12/2007 19:43

Obviously the transfer of 500000 shares I referred to above was a sell by JM at 61p. The interesting question is which institution bought them at 61.122p

[masrscb9] 10/12/2007 21:29

Vicon Debuts Ultranet HD
New Hardware Device Boosts Scalability and Flexibility for Vicon MX Motion Capture Systems
Press Release
December 10, 2007 Source: Studio Daily


VICON, developer of Academy Award-winning motion capture systems, today announced Ultranet HD, a new hardware device enabling customers to configure their VICON MX motion capture systems more efficiently and cost-effectively.

The Ultranet HD is the new core hardware for the VICON MX systems, and combines the functions of several separate devices into one small unit. In addition, Ultranet HD allows connection to GigE video cameras. For entertainment professionals, Ultranet HD comes customized with time code and genlock options to sync reference video and audio with mo-cap data.

"Ultranet HD allows our customers to configure their motion capture rigs more economically because a single unit can connect, power and synchronize up to ten MX cameras," explained Robin Pengelly, Senior Vice President, Entertainment Division, VICON. "Our customers in entertainment often have complex shoot requirements that employ tens if not hundreds of motion capture cameras. With two or more Ultranet HD units connected together, VICON motion capture systems can scale as project needs evolve and still deliver the signature accuracy that makes our systems the top choice for leading filmmakers and game developers."

Ultranet HD can be tailored to meet a studio's needs:
Ultranet HD Studio- equipped with time code and genlock options and a 4 channel audio card so that reference audio and video can be synced with motion capture data.

Ultranet HD- a standard configuration for customers who don't require any additional options.

Ultranet HD not only minimizes space, cabling and power requirements during a motion capture shoot, it also enables users to sync high definition studio equipment at up to 23.976 fps and 24p as well as normal analog SD interlaced standards, allowing all acquisition devices on a production pipeline to run at the same frame rate. In addition, Ultranet HD uses GigaBit Ethernet to ensure that the VICON MX systems have the highest data rate and throughput efficiency of any mo-cap system available.

See

[bbonsall] 10/12/2007 21:03

It is also possible that the two 500000 trades were a sell at 61p and a corresponding buy at 61.122p. A possible arranged transfer, maybe from Gartmore to an other.

[radon] 10/12/2007 19:52

Looks like Gartmore has reduced its stake below 10% on 6 Dec. I am guessing that they sold another 1 000 000 shares today? This is certainly keeping a lid on any prices rises due to the flow of good news coming out in the last 2 weeks.

[boraki] 09/12/2007 18:23

This should move up soon


Investors chronicle summary 7 Dec 2007


THE MOST EXCITING THING ABOUT OMG IS early-stage ventures into detailed street mapping (Yotta DCL) and the defence applications of its camera-tracking technology, 2d3.

These forecast-beating results demonstrated the continuing strength of its core motion-capture business, Vicon.

Two years ago, OMG sold 200 cameras to the computer animators behind the realistic Beowulf film, which has just hit cinemas. It was a very big deal back then, but OMG has already sold almost 1,000 of its latest 'F series' camera since its April release.

Vicon's revenues grew 21 per cent at constant currency, and even with the weak dollar, that allowed OMG to pour additional investment into Yotta and defence.

July's acquisition of highway surveyor DCL is yielding dual benefits - DCL is now backed by a bigger group and Yotta is selling its products to DCL's local government customers.

Even though the deal was 10 times larger than OMG's previous acquisition, chief executive Nick Bolton seems to be taking it in his stride, thanks to a year of preparation. "It's been an integrated division from day one,"

Broker Evolution Securities forecasts EPS of 2.6p for 2008, and has a target price of 80p.

[masrscb9] 07/12/2007 12:02

Southampton City Council awards contract to Yotta DCL for innovative street mapping solution
December 06, 2007

Company: Data Collection Ltd
Industry: Local Government, GIS Software Products
Location: Oxford, United Kingdom



Southampton City Council (UK) has chosen innovative mapping technology that converts highway survey results into a standard GIS format to help engineers to assess road conditions. The MARCHmap software from highway surveying specialist Yotta DCL will be used to extract survey data from the councils Pavement Management System (PMS); a computer system used to support management of programmed highway maintenance. The implementation of MARCHmap coincides with the Council's change from its existing PMS to Yotta DCL's MARCHpms.

Southampton City Council chose MARCHpms because it offers greater flexibility and will assist the Highways Department to identify the best treatments for maintenance programmes, prioritising jobs and targeting budgets.

"MARCHpms has a lot more going for it than our current pavement management system. It is much easier to use and we are able to use it as a standalone system if required. Moreover, Yotta DCL's MARCHpms helpdesk is superior to other companies," says Will Bull, UKPMS (UK Pavement Management System) Officer, Southampton City Council.

"Our expectation is that MARCHpms will provide us with more accurate information and better BVPI diagnostics via its extensive drill down features," he continues.

Southampton City Council has a total network length of 560km that will be loaded into MARCHpms; this includes all road classes from A to unclassified and all footways. Will Bull and his colleagues utilise the PMS daily for footway DVIs (detailed visual inspections), SCANNER (Surface Condition Assessment for the National Network of Roads), reflectograph and SCRIM (sideway-force coefficient routine investigation machine) data. Moreover, MARCHpms will make it easier for the Highways Department to generate maintenance schemes and defect reports using the data.

The Council utilises several other services from Yotta DCL, including SCANNER, DVIs and CVIs, and ground penetrating radar. Will Bull and his colleagues also have a long-standing relationship with the company's Professional Services Manager and lead UKPMS consultant, Stacy Smith, who over a period of five years has built up an extensive understanding of the Council's PMS needs.

"Yotta DCL provides a range of surveys to Southampton City Council and we are very pleased to be implementing MARCHpms," concludes Will Bull.

[bbonsall] 07/12/2007 08:27

Anyone know what Invetor's Chronicle says about OMG's results today please?

[pgetty] 02/12/2007 14:55

The Golden Compass and a British adventure in Hollywood. A write-up in The Independent on Sunday 2-12-07 by Nina Lakhani and Susie Mesure.

[hew] 28/11/2007 09:10

Good results - although a pity the text is rather understated!

From the multiple mentions it seems more acquisitions are in sight. With the new ventures already to be tended, notably in the US, I hope I don't detect a note of hubris creeping in. Some of the oration seems more suited to internal inspiration rather than a business plan.

But I stay positive.

pgetty, thanks for the clip - have you put it on U tube (or whatever it is called!). Good PR.

[masrscb9] 28/11/2007 09:05

I was interested to read what was said about 2d3 Inc and Yotta DCL in the US.
Apparently they have roads and a military over there too ;-)

[masrscb9] 28/11/2007 08:16

Record results out.

[masrscb9] 27/11/2007 15:08

Thanks for that, pgetty.

[pgetty] 27/11/2007 14:17

A short piece on ITV local news;

[gengulphus] 23/11/2007 10:20

Or just the usual random noise? When the markets fall, shares don't all fall in perfect synchrony!

And especially with shares like this one that get small numbers of trades per day, the share price can be affected by just one or two moderate-sized holders deciding to sell. All it takes is for there to be a few such holders who decide to sell in response to the market falls, but are a bit slow to react to them, and you'll get exactly the pattern we've got here: apparent immunity to the market falls for a while, and then the price catches up with them.

Another possible cause of the same pattern is that if someone likes two shares, and one of them stays steady in market falls and the other drops, they'll probably eventually decide to sell some of the one that remained steady to fund top-up purchases of the other at bargain prices.

Gengulphus

[bbonsall] 22/11/2007 22:57

OMG has recently been immune to the falls in the FTSE. Now within days of the results we are seeing daily declines, 11% in the past few days. MMs trying to get hold of cheap shares in advance of good results so they can turn an excessive profit as always, or something negative in the results already known to a few chosen ones?

[masrscb9] 21/11/2007 10:19

Stacy Smith joins Yotta DCL from UK's Transport Research Laboratory

Oxford, UK, 16 November 2007 - Yotta DCL, the highway surveying and geospatial data specialist, has appointed Stacy Smith as Professional Services Manager. Stacy joins Yotta DCL to manage the company's expanding Professional Services team from TRL (Transport Research Laboratory) where he was a UKPMS (UK Pavement Management System) consultant.

Stacy's broad and in-depth knowledge of UKPMS, its application, associated issues and solutions, brings additonal strength and technical and practical leadership to the Professional Services team. This enables Yotta DCL to provide extensive UKPMS training to all Local Authorities and contractors.

"My ambition is to make Yotta DCL the Number One choice for independent UKPMS training. With Local Authorities only loading up their PMSs two to three times a year, we are able to provide much needed support to make the process as streamlined as possible. What can take a Local Authority up 2 weeks to perform, we can do in 2 days," says Stacy.

"Stacy brings exceptional skills, knowledge and experience to Yotta DCL. With his leadership our Professional Services team will deliver excellent training in all aspects of UKPMS and also provide a crack squad of experts that can quickly resolve pavement management system issues," says David Lowe, Director, Yotta DCL.

[masrscb9] 21/11/2007 10:12

Glowing comments from Activision Director below:



Vicor MX: CoD3's motion capture system
Posted Nov 20, 2006 at 02:26AM by Tim Y. Listed in: Off Topic, Call of Duty 3, Games Tags: Activision, WWII, Vicon


We love grenades. They're not just a terrific way to clear a room (with the exception of using week-old gym socks), there's this strange, maliciously gratifying feeling to watching your AI opponents fly into the air, arms flailing, the instant after your Potato Mmasher/Pineapple goes "BOOM" in their face. It's not just that we get kicks from blowing stuff up - it's also fun to see how realistic the rendered movements are, especially in a game like CoD 3, where authenticity plays a major role in this WWII FPS.

If you feel the same way we do about the game's body-realism (flying bodies and bullet flinching included), you can thank Activision's in-house motion-capture equipment. Vicon's MX motion capture system, a recent acquisition for this game developing bigwig, was responsible for the fluid and realistic movements we've been enjoying for the game.

The 48-camera motion capture system allowed Activision's development teams to record up to eight people simultaneously as they went about doing movements that were to be encoded for the game interface and also allowed for more complex props and water effects to be included in the recording sessions.

Activision's Director of Motion Capture, Matt Karnes mentions that he "likes the focus of Vicon; I like its hardware, its software and its people. I like the fact that they are production minded and have product development paired up with real-world production. The way data is captured with the Vicon MX cameras is flawless. In the five months since we've had the Vicon system, a team of two of us produced over 20,000 character animations – more than I've ever done in a year!"

So there you have it - Vicon. Activision. Motion capture. Grenades. Flailing arms. It all connects.