Barco Launches New Visualization Platform
Barco announced the launch of a new visualization platform for collaborative decision-making inside control rooms and other applications. The platform comprises professional displays or videowalls, display controllers, and control room management software.
Barco has announced the launch of a new visualization platform for collaborative decision-making inside control rooms and other applications. The platform comprises professional displays or videowalls, display controllers, and control room management software, giving operators and decision-makers the ability to collect sources, organize data, distribute information, and collaborate with other decision-makers or information stakeholders, says the company. Also, universal software and hardware improve situational awareness within and between control rooms.
“Today’s control rooms are complex networked environments handling an ever-increasing number of video and data sources,” said Robert Wu, market director for control rooms at Barco’s Traffic, Surveillance, and Monitoring business unit, in a statement. “In addition, companies and authorities increasingly seek to collaborate beyond the traditional boundaries of control centers and agencies. Barco’s new visualization platform will support control room operators and decision-makers better by offering universal interfaces to ingest all types of collected information, by presenting it in the most efficient and ergonomic way, and by creating shared situational awareness among all possible stakeholders.”
The network-based platform includes high-resolution graphics and video input modules, which the company says allow capturing practically any source type (real-time signals coming from highway sensors, vehicle GPS systems, and other intelligent transportation systems, SCADA sources, digital maps, or video sources) without the need for specialized cabling or routings. Using an existing IP network, Barco’s platform also allows sources to be added anytime, wherever they are located, says the company.
The platform’s control room management software allows operators to share data with colleagues or supervisors, creating what Barco calls a shared situational awareness. Operators can create personal layouts and views and bundle them into perspectives that can be shared with other operators or supervisors for collaboration or approval. These can then be pushed on to more public group display walls, locally or at remote locations. Conversely, the software can bring up sources that are displayed at remote display walls or workstations onto the local operator’s screen. If required, the operator can push this remote view to the local video wall or any other PC that uses Barco’s software, according to company officials.
