Altia Systems Launches Intelligent Vision 2.0 Suite of AI Products for PanaCast

CUPERTINO, Calif., June 6, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Altia Systems, creator of PanaCast^® 2, the world's first 180° Panoramic-4K Plug-and-Play camera system, today announces its Intelligent Vision 2.0 suite of products which are based on a new generation of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. These technologies improve participants' collaboration experience by delivering accurate information that automates workflows by accurately counting people and creates "big data" for data science applications through industry-first Intel Architecture based intelligence. The AI head detector CNN (Convolutional Neural Network) has been developed and trained on PanaCast in collaboration with Intel. These technologies have been developed with customers' privacy as the first and foremost requirement. The device stores no information, only provides numerical data, and that too only on demand.

Altia Systems launched Intelligent Vision 1.0 in January 2017 with the shipment of Intelligent Zoom followed by PanaCast Whiteboard and PanaCast Vivid over the past year. The Intelligent Vision suite works with any video conferencing service and enhances the video collaboration experience.

The Intelligent Vision 2.0 product suite includes:

• Built-in People Detection: this capability is based on an embedded face detector technology using front/side facial views and is available through the newly-released PanaCast API. It allows users to query the device for real-time people counting data through simple standards-based UVC queries. The information can be used to create a histogram of usage and also to automate manual workflows, such as room occupancy detection, room calendar management, room/space utilization and resource management, or to automate facility assets such as TV monitors, lights, video conferencing equipment, etc. It can provide people counting data when the camera system is idle and concurrently while it is in use by a video conferencing application. It detects people up to 12 feet away and can simultaneously count up to 40 people, and is built into the PanaCast Vision Processor within the PanaCast 2 device.
• Advanced People Detection: this capability is based on a new AI head detector CNN, developed in cooperation with Intel. The technology uses a novel CNN network architecture that is able to detect people from all directions including partially visible heads and extends the range up to 40 feet in crowded scenarios.  The CNN inference engine is highly optimized for Intel^® Core™ processor based PCs and the Panoramic-4K video of the PanaCast 2 camera system. The technology is available through PanaCast API built for the Windows operating system. The technology can be used for large areas like classrooms, auditoriums and general gatherings.
• Intelligent Zoom 2.0 – Intelligent Zoom 2.0 has integrated significant enhancements based on customer use around the world over the past 18 months and now also includes temporal filtering and the new AI head detector CNN. It automatically zooms the video frame in and out to include all the meeting participants autonomously, so people can focus on their meeting without being distracted by the need to manage the field of view. With the advanced people detection technology, Intelligent Zoom 2.0 can detect people up to 40 feet away from the existing PanaCast 2 device and works with any video conferencing application.

PanaCast's synchronized multi-camera array system is a fundamentally new approach. It is based on a new, scalable distributed architecture in which the video streams from three 80º non-distorting cameras are synchronized with micronic precision and input in the PanaCast Vision Processor to deliver 100% video coverage with a natural looking 180º horizontal field of view. It simultaneously works as a synthetic sensor array to deliver 100% intelligent sensing, delivering Intelligent Vision/Artificial Intelligence technologies to improve participants' experience and enhance productivity with machine learning, autonomous action and big data.

"Intel is investing in AI technologies on Intel Client platforms to deliver more intelligent conference rooms and meetings" said Praveen Vishakantaiah, Intel Corporation Vice President, Client Computing Group and General Manager, Client Architecture and Innovation. "The Intel Core processor optimized AI head detector technology combined with the low distortion 180º field of view video produced by the PanaCast camera enables businesses to make better decisions, automate workflows and improve business efficiency."

Jose De La Paz, CEO, VisibilityOne Corp said, "We've integrated PanaCast's API and people detection and counting capability into our VisibilityOne dashboard to deliver real-time data and insights into devices, applications and operating environment to provide the best communication and unified collaboration experience for our customers. VisibilityOne will be showcasing our dashboard at booth N2732 at InfoComm."

"PanaCast's platform has a unique ability to provide full video coverage with real-time intelligent sensing," said Graham Evans of avt. "Leveraging the data provided by the PanaCast camera system enables our customers to optimize their increasingly expensive and in-demand, meeting/huddle-space resources."

PanaCast is increasingly being used in new markets, including education, broadcasting and advertising. Quividi, the industry standard for Audience and Attention Analytics in DOOH with its own measurement technology, has now started using PanaCast 2 cameras for some of its high-profile deployments.

"We are proud to pioneer the use of the PanaCast 2 in the Digital Out of Home (DOOH) market," says Ke-Quang Nguyen-Phuc, CEO of Quividi. "This camera offers an incredible resolution and gives our real-time Attention Analytics a superb 180º field of view, allowing it to analyze ever further and wider. More than ever, measuring DOOH is equivalent to measuring views."

"Modern collaboration requires 100% video coverage and, concurrently, 100% intelligent sensing. Single cameras miss a lot of the space because of their limited field of view and create unnatural distortion when extending the field of view optically, making them infeasible for modern AI based solutions," said Aurangzeb Khan, President and CEO of Altia Systems. "This new suite of products lets you see and make sense of the video experience for people in real time, enabling companies to improve participants' collaboration experience via autonomous, intelligent action, and to create data sets which lead to further workflow automation and provide the basis for sound decision-making."

The PanaCast API is available free of cost. The Intelligent Zoom 2.0 and the built-in people detection technology are also available as free of cost upgrades for Intelligent Zoom 1.0 customers for their own use. Companies wishing to build commercial services on this technology may contact the Altia Systems team.

The Intelligent Vision 2.0 suite of products prices will remain identical to the original 1.0 suite, available as an add-on to any PanaCast 2 camera. Customers currently using the 1.0 suite of products may upgrade to 2.0 at no additional cost.  

Intelligent Vision 2.0, along with PanaCast 2, PanaCast 2s and the recently announced PanaCast Live will be demonstrated at booth N1868 at InfoComm, taking place from June 6-8, 2018 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

About Altia Systems

Altia Systems^® is a venture-backed company based in Cupertino, CA., and is the creator of the PanaCast^® system and software products. PanaCast^® 2, the world's first Panoramic-4K Plug-and-Play camera system that delivers a 180° wide field of view, which replicates the natural human visual perspective.

Funded by Intel Capital and other leading investors, Altia Systems' PanaCast 2, 2s, 3D VR and Live systems deliver real-time 180° Panoramic-4K, Panoramic-5K and 4K 3D video streams from integrated, synchronized and optimized multi-camera arrays. PanaCast systems and Intelligent Vision (artificial intelligence) software products are used by more than 1,500 companies worldwide, including 400+ universities, for video collaboration, education, AR/VR, live broadcasting and machine learning for autonomous systems. PanaCast system devices are designed and assembled in the U.S. and have received prestigious awards such as CES Innovation Awards Honoree, Frost & Sullivan New Product Innovation, GOOD DESIGN award, Gartner Cool Vendor in Unified Communications, and more.

For more information and the latest updates, visit www.panacast.com and follow @PanaCast1 via Twitter.

Contact: Brenda Manea
BAM Communications
[email protected]
(714) 904-8592

SOURCE Altia Systems

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