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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2013 06 10 Consent 200 Accept Grant for Forensic Photograph and Video Enhancement Software COMMISSION AGENDA Informational Consent X ITEM 200 Public Hearings g Regular June 10, 2013 KB Regular Meeting City Manager Department REQUEST: The Police Department requests the Commission accept a grant from the Spirit of Blue Foundation in the amount of $3,975. These grant funds will be utilized to purchase AMPED 5 professional software for forensic digital photograph and video enhancement. SYNOPSIS: This year the Police Department applied for a grant through the Spirit of Blue Foundation. The Grant was for the software AMPED 5 which is used for Forensic Digital Photograph and Video enhancement. The cost of the software is $3,975. The police department was selected to receive the grant and now requests Commission approval for acceptance of the grant. There are no matching funds required for the City to receive this award. CONSIDERATIONS: In May 2013, the Police Department was notified that we were selected to receive a grant award through the Spirit of Blue Foundation for the AMPED 5 professional software which costs $3,975. Only 10 copies were available and The Winter Springs Police Department was chosen to be one of the recipients. AMPED 5 is a forensic photograph and video enhancement software. The purpose of getting this software is to assist in investigations that yield digital photographs and video that are received for investigations that normally are unusable because of their quality. This software will allow our investigators to digitally enhance our evidence to allow for successful prosecution of any case involving poor photographs or videos. FISCAL IMPACT: Consent 200 PAGE 1 OF 2-June 10,2013 The potential grant revenues and related expenditures were not included in the FY 2013 Budget pending a decision on this award. The Budget was already submitted and in effect prior to this Grant being awarded. The software normally cost $3,975 which is covered by the grant. It will also include one year free support and free online training. Therefore, there is no additional fiscal impact on the FY 2013 Budget relative to this agenda item. However, there will likely be reoccurring cost to future budgets as it relates to software maintenance and any potential upgrades. COMMUNICATION EFFORTS: This Agenda Item has been electronically forwarded to the Mayor and City Commission, City Manager, City Attorney/Staff, and is available on the City's Website, LaserFiche, and the City's Server. Additionally, portions of this Agenda Item are typed verbatim on the respective Meeting Agenda which has also been electronically forwarded to the individuals noted above, and which is also available on the City's Website, LaserFiche, and the City's Server; has been sent to applicable City Staff, Media/Press Representatives who have requested Agendas/Agenda Item information, Homeowner's Associations/Representatives on file with the City, and all individuals who have requested such information. This information has also been posted outside City Hall, posted inside City Hall with additional copies available for the General Public, and posted at five (5) different locations around the City. Furthermore, this information is also available to any individual requestors. City Staff is always willing to discuss this Agenda Item or any Agenda Item with any interested individuals. RECOMMENDATION: The Police Department recommends the Commission accept the grant from the Spirit of Blue Foundation in the amount of $3,975, approve utilization of these grant funds for purchase of AMPED 5 professional software for forensic digital photograph and video enhancement, and authorize the City Manager to execute all applicable documents. ATTACHMENTS: Grant Award - Letter and software description Consent 200 PAGE 2 OF 2-June 10,2013 I _ _.� March 12, 2013 Lt. Doug Seely Winter Springs Police Department 300 North Moss Road Winter Springs, FL 32708 Grant Award Notification: Amped FIVE Professional Software Dear Lt. Seely, The Spirit of Blue Foundation is pleased to inform you that the Winter Springs Police Department has been selected to receive a Safety Equipment Grant in the form of a product donation. The specific product is a copy of Amped FIVE Professional 2012 Edition, a forensic image and video enhancement software package. Amped FIVE has been designed in cooperation with several specialized institutions and university researchers experienced in forensic science and criminology to provide a complete set of tools for gathering evidence. The concept of Amped Five was in fact,from the offspring of a joint venture between the Scientific Investigation Department of Carabinieri (Italian Military Police) National Crime Lab and the Image Processing Laboratory of the University Of Trieste, which is well known for its forensic activities. The manufacturer's suggested retail value of the grant being awarded is$3,975. Nothing additional will be provided as part of the grant. Free support for the first year, along with free online resources are available from Amped Software for the purpose of usage training and technical support. Additional expenses for training or support are not provided for. In keeping with the Spirit of Blue's mission of enhancing officer safety and vitality through meeting safety equipment needs,this grant is intended to benefit officers through investigating, apprehending and the aggressive prosecution of violent criminals who then can no longer pose a threat to law enforcement officers or the general public. We are glad that we became aware of your agency's need for the software are pleased that your agency was selected to receive this Safety Equipment Grant. We are committed to working with you regarding the documents and details required to aid your agency in gaining approval to receive this grant and getting the product delivered. 0 Please feel to contact me with any questions, concerns or next steps in order to facilitate the receipt of this grant. Again, congratulations on your agency being selected. We are hopeful that the use of this grant aids in the safety of officers and your citizens. Sincerely, Ryan T. Smith Safety Equipment Grant Program Director Spirit of Blue Foundation (585) 662-9032 rsmith @spiritofblue.com Spirit of Blue, Inc. 840 W. Blackhawk#304 Chicago, IL 60642 (312) 718-5656- info @spiritofblue.com 0 101101111111011 011000 NO S A II, ( / I 10 110 111 0 1111 Ampled Five Product Information Guide 2012 US Version �N/11 y 1, 2110 1211 E d iii ql lil o iii Forensic Video Enhancement Software 4. d images and videos in any format license plates,faces and anything else better �matic generation of a detailed report documenting scientific methodology used 6 rytt 4 Five is the most complete software for enhancing rid analyzing images and videos during investigaLions. A single fool to analyze crime scene photos, enhance surveillance and intelligence video with a workflow compatible with forensic; needs. Amped Software proudly supports the Spirit of Blue Foundation httfr.../(www sfriritoflakie.:corn KIIIII .3 Ampeg Five: forensic video enhancement software Amped Five is the most complete image processing software specifically designed for investigative, forensic and security applications. Its primary purpose is to provide forensic investigators a complete and unique solution to process and analyze digital images and video data in a simple, fast and precise way. I hrough processing and analyzing both still and video images, then utilizing a clear workflow to present evidence that withstands the scrutiny of the courtroom, Amped Five is the forensic professional's trusted partner. Amped Five provides tools for solutions to a wide range of problems which are otherwise easily missed. Since Five is self-contained, it can help to dramatically reduce the time required to process data arid improves the success rate of various cases, from the restoration of low quality CC IV video to fingerprint analysis. ,61 Ai,,pad Fv- fp" 1 .............. 4t S,I,,t Fir—, Edit Crap I W- Red I G,,- Bl., n S,Ie ti— Ch...d, Flip Adj-1 R-1, Ed—t R-- V-6/ S—,I R,,,- M-- Sh p- Highlight, 255 D—is Field Shift D,blue i.9 :U,di,t.,t p 0 255 R t— U-11 st'bili-tii- Mitt— 179 ............. 255 Sh.d-1 7B Fi,Wi,d— 0 255 Image.................................X" Lander l D,bl.,ri,g 2 Cri,p 4 L—ls 6 Z—p—Original 5 ........................................................................................................................................... —- - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - —- - ——- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 4 Loop [F.ip—W I 00 00 0 0 Read. . -n..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................-- A new and. better way to handle video evidence "Today, I may hove 25-30 cases to process. Tomorrow, I may hove 25 more. With Five I con quickly determine, in o matter of minutes, which video evidence is usable and which is not. This way I con spend my time on the video evidence where I con get o result and not waste hours working on dead ends." Jim Hoerricks, Forensic Video/Image Analyst Maintaining the original evidence integrity is a I<ey element in the design of Amped Five. In the law enforcement arena, courts,judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys can sense the weal<ness of evidence and exclude it if there is even a hint that any manipulation that has been done. The current judicial trend for admission of digital evidence shows that undocumented or modified files have a strong chance of being excluded; as do many files that have been worl<ed on with photo editing software without full documentation of steps and validation of the process. If this is the I<ey evidence in a case, the case is likely to be lost. With Five, our core philosophy in designing the product is that everything is done by simply applying a filter to an image or video. This means that no re-rendering, no modifying, no altering and no disturbing or destroying original evidence. Whether you are loading a video, exporting a sequence, applying some denoising, selecting frames, taking measurements and so on; this concept of filtering allows for very fast, elegant, and predictable worl<flow. For each step in the process, every filter takes as input the image or video generated by the previous filter and, after the processing, passes the result to the output filter. You can even modify a filter and see the real time output effects on another one down the chain. In this way you can see how modifying some values on a previous filter will modify the final result. This is very effective especially for complex problems and long chains of filters. Trial and error is often the most common scientific method that is applied in forensic analysis. Experimenting with different filters and settings is done to find the right filter group, settings, or combination of steps to correct unique problems. With most other forensic image processing software, this is a very long process that often must be restarted if one filter has to be changed or results are not optimal; then restarted again should the results of the second (or third or fourth, etc) result prove to be less than ideal. We have designed the architecture of Five with this in mind. Reviewing and modifying any step of the processing is as quicl<and easy and as simple as replacing, deleting, turning off, or moving filters anywhere in the chain. In this way Five guarantees speed, effectiveness and scientific methodology. The complete workflow Analyze Restore Enhance Certify Five is not a simple one-click video enhancement tool with limited settings or just a plug-in for standard commercial photo editing software. It's a complete software solution that addresses any possible need in the analysis of images and videos for investigations, surveillance, and forensic applications. For the forensic investigator, Five can make quick work of any video or image; from importing and converting the footage, analysis of its format, clarify content,taking measurements of the crime scene, and then generating the technical report that you will bring to the courtroom. 1. Import any type of image,video or sequence of images. If the video is an unsupported proprietary DVR format we can easily import it in Five with no loss of quality (uncompressed/RAW ) with the new DVR capture tool. 2. Analyze specific details of your images (like EXIF metadata) and your videos (like video codec and encoding type of every single frame). 3. Speed workflow on long videos by locating the frames of interest with the new motion detection and select only the useful ones either in an interval or in random ositions. p 4. Process the frames utilizing more than 70 available filters in unlimited combinations, in order to restore lost quality, repair specific defects, or clarify image features. 5. Take specific linear and 3-dimensional measurements on images or video frames. This is an excellent tool for crime scene or accident scene investigations or to profile a suspect. 6. Save the result of the processing as an image, a video or a sequence of images or frames. You can even show side by side every original frame with its enhanced version to illustrate your work for presentation purposes. You can even save snapshot images of steps with one click. 7. Automatically generate a report containing the scientific methodology of the processing and all the processing steps. The report provides the scientific references for each filter used, the settings, and specifics to that particular frame or image. This reporting feature is extremely valuable for US users in Frye or Daubert states. Applications Designed. by f uu-e iun lifi pii-ofessioinals f iur f uu-e iun lifi pii-ofessioinals Our team has worked with images and videos evidence several hundred forensic cases for law enforcement, courts, lawyers, private investigators and Public Prosecutors. With this experience, we designed Five to work reliably in the widest range of situations. In fact, thanks to its intuitive interface, it is not only used by specialists working in national law enforcement and intelligence agencies in many countries, but also local police, municipalities, court experts and private companies working in the surveillance and forensic fields. The most common application for law enforcement is to use Five to improve a surveillance video output from CCTV taken at a crime scene in order to see a face, a license plate, or anything that can be useful for investigations. Amped Five offers many intuitive tools to enhance and clarify video and images; plus document scientific methodology used to get the results. For investigations, Amped Five is all about getting results. You need to improve your video or images and use the result as evidence. You can do it because Amped Five allows you to automatically and completely document the employed filters from a scientific point of view. Whether you need to stabilize a full motion video surveillance feed from a UAV or other asset in hostile territories, or enhance scout surveillance images through fog and sandstorms, Amped Five is the solution. Amped Five can be installed on any standard PC, so it can be deployed quickly in any environment. We offer special versions for military use with DoD/NATO compatible formats and features, please contact us for details. Aiiiinped Five foir cii-iiine scalars photos Five has the right tools to take measurements on the pictures taken from the crime scene or to see them better. Five offers the crime scene investigator a complete set of tools in one easy application. Amped Five can help you to improve fingerprint image quality and measure height of subjects from images. Five offers one solution to solve a multitude of problems. Amped Five is used in several universities and research institutes as a simple and fast way to enhance images and video with its wide selection of filters. Amped Five is also part of the curricula at the best universities where the next generation of forensic investigators is trained.