Vocord, a Moscow-based innovative company, has developed a solution to analyze digital photo and video material. Analysis using the new product is “of super-quality and super-accurate,” the project owners claim. One of the most promising applications for the Vocord VideoExpert is forensic science (criminalistics). Another is biometric face recognition designed to ensure security in public places, including large sports facilities.

Vocord has been in the Russian market since 1999, developing and producing professional video surveillance systems and telecom solutions. A more recent focus is R&D in new video analysis technology, including computer vision, face recognition, vehicle license plate recognition, etc.

The Vocord VideoExpert is software enabling users to identify edits and forgery in photo and video material, improve the quality of images for further processing, and also conduct 3D tech aided portrait analysis, automatically recognize unreadable license plates, and do matching across databases.

Vocord’s newest solution is designed primarily to help the juridical system, including forensic experts, police officers and other law enforcement agents. With this software one could see if a still has been deleted, replaced or repositioned within one video sequence; or if a still from a different video has been inserted and/or otherwise ‘doctored.’ The solution is also expected to help improve damaged pictures considerably.

The Vocord VideoExpert is said to be able to remove flaws caused by compression, reduce ‘noise’ typical for shooting in adverse weather conditions, and support the processing of both stills and videos simultaneously.

The system analyzes digital photo and video material and sums up results in an interim report that contains a formal description of a file, a list of filters used, and other relevant data, the developers said. Officers who conduct forensic analysis could then draw upon the report to do official paperwork.

Government agencies are not the only market for their product, the team said. The management believes the commercial sector, including insurance firms, is also likely to get interested.

Biometric recognition for public safety

Last summer Vocord had developed and began commercializing its new biometric face recognition system called “Vocord FaceControl.”

A pilot project was carried out at the Arena Omsk ice sports palace; the Vocord system has been monitoring security issues at one of the largest multifunctional sports facilities in Siberia with a capacity of more than 10,000 sports fans. Using the Vocord FaceControl is said to help the administration of the stadium to put together a database of the pictures of fans, blacklist wrongdoers, and prepare numerical stats to see trends in aficionados’ behavior.

The system works as follows: special cameras are said to be able to automatically capture, photograph and archive the faces of visitors; the images are then processed for possible match with images in reference face databases as well as with databases run by the police or federal security agencies.

The Vocord FaceControl technology could find its way to other real estate projects like shopping malls, too, to prevent thefts and other misdemeanors. It is said to have already been tested in a hypermarket in Russia’s westernmost enclave of Kaliningrad.

The company was also reported to be actively marketing its road traffic control solutions called “Vocord Traffic” and “Vocord Cyclops.”

The developer is ready to take these solutions not only to the former Soviet Union markets but also beyond.