Many of the projects we are asked to do have an interesting component to them.
Below is a list of some of our more interesting projects. New projects are added to this page is we feel they would create an interest amongst our customers.
PTZ webcam for Roundhill Ski Field - Lake Tekapo
Roundhill Ski Field is set into the base of the Richmond Range, overlooking Lake Tekapo. They first approached Snowgrass Solutions in 2008 regarding the possibility of installing a sophisticated webcam near the top of the ski field, where the views were the best.
In 2010 such a system was budgeted for and the system was designed and installed prior to the 2010 ski season.
The camera is an Axis 213PTZ camera operating on a solar charged battery. The camera is loaded with customised code that instructs the camera to autonomously capture a series of images at a resolution of 704 x 576 and upload them to the Roundhill website.
The camera's enclosure includes a fan forced heater to clear any ice that may be blown on to the dome. The heater is operated by the camera's operating system and activates automatically for 20 minutes twice a day, but can also be triggered manually by a remote connection to the camera.
Initially the connection to Roundhill's web server was through a high speed 900MHz 3G mobile connection. The 3G router has an external antenna for increased signal strength in remote areas and was developed by Snowgrass Solutions for use in such camera systems, but can also be used to connect any remote computer user to the Internet. With an optional wireless module, the router can share the mobile broadband connection with multiple users.
The 3G link will eventually be replaced with a long range wireless link connected to an existing broadband connection in the Tekapo township, 26km away. The pole will become a repeater station for the link, retransmitting the broadband service down to the ski field's administration buildings and a nearby homestead.
Pegasus Town, north of Christchurch, is an exciting project involving the building of an entirely new town, complete with lake and golf course, on the Pegasus Bay coast.
We were approached by the developers and asked to investigate installing a webcam in the centre of the town.
A location on the top of a suspension bridge over the lake was selected and an Axis PTZ was chosen as the prefered camera due to its ability to capture multiple views from a single vantage point.
The camera uses a medium range radio data link to the nearest network with an Internet gateway.
The camera captures a series of images every 15 minutes during daylight hours.
An established South Island based
developer approached Snowgrass Solutions regarding a camera system that would allow them to monitor remotely, a major construction project.
In addition to providing them with a live video feed of the site over a simple broadband connection, the camera was also required to capture regular high quality images of the project that could subsequently be used by their customer to create a time lapse video of the building's construction.
For this reason, an HDTV camera was installed
with a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels and capable of transmitting video over the Internet in the very economical H.264 format.
A miniature example of a time lapse movie created from the 1280 x 800 pixel images captured by the camera
Remote, solar powered video recorder
Snowgrass Solutions was contacted by a reputable Environmental Consultancy company in Auckland, regarding the design and installation of a remote video recording system for monitoring an area of interest, where power and an Internet connection was not available.
A system was designed using a high resolution miniature camera, Digital Video Recorder (DVR), timer, solar panel and high capacity battery.
The system was configured to record up to 2 months of video during daylight hours only.
Approximately once a month the site is attended and the DVR's Hard Disk Drive (HDD) swapped. The HDD is then courier to the consultants in Auckland for review.
The observations are used as evidence to support the requirements of their customer's Resource Consent.
Low voltage airport runway lighting system
Several years ago we were contacted by a well
established aviation company with regard to designing and installing a
runway lighting system for their rural airport.
There were several considerations in designing the
system.
The rocky terrain would not allow cables to be buried more than
several hundred millimetres blow the surface.
The air field was located in an area of light sensitivity, requiring
minimal vertical light emissions.
Because of the rocky terrain, a low voltage system
was required, as the deep trenching required of a high voltage system,
was not possible.
An LED system was chosen and made possible through recent developments
in LED (light emitting diode) technology.
The LED's chosen were "night sky friendly" with only 4% of all light
emissions emitted vertically.
80% of the light emitted is at 3 degrees above horizontal, the typical
glide slope for an aircraft approach to a runway.
Several essential components were imported and
aluminium components were designed by Snowgrass Solutions and manufactured locally.
An energy
efficient system was manufactured to provide operation on a power supply of
just 32v over a cable
length of approximately 2 kilometres.
A system of 23 lights was installed at the
airport, comprising of 21 white and 2 red LED lights, one at each
end of the runway.
Completed, the entire runway lighting system
requires only 80 watts of electrical power to operate. Less power than
is required to operate a single incandescent lamp used in a domestic
house, but with a
horizontal night time visibility of approximately 15km.
Ohau Snow Field webcam and high endurance 230v
UPS systems
As
part of a major upgrade to Ohau Snow Field in 2008, Snowgrass Solutions
installed a P-T-Z webcam with spectacular views from the upper regions
of the mountain.
The camera will be used to capture several views from its location and
send them as images to the Ohau web-server, for display on their
new webcam page.
The camera is loaded with customised scripts
that instruct the camera to autonomously steer through multiple views
and upload the resulting series of images to a website via FTP upload.
The ski field's 230v power is derived from diesel
generation. The camera and its associated network equipment, radio
link and the climate monitoring for the field's new snow making
system, had to continue operating on 230v for around 24 hours when the
generator was shut down.
An 800VA pure sine-wave UPS system was installed along with a high
capacity AGM battery to meet the
requirement in such a severe climate.
A second UPS was also installed at the generator facility to maintain
a second radio link and the generator and snow making auto-start
equipment, allowing both systems to be started remotely over the
network.
Alpine weather conditions at Ohau required
substantial modification to the camera's enclosure to assist in
rapidly clearing ice and snow from the camera's dome.
To maintain battery endurance, the resulting heating system only
operates when the field's diesel generator is running, usually only
when the field is open.
The project was done in conjunction with renowned tourism website
design company, Cabbage Tree Creative
Queenstown Airport webcam
To further market the airport in New Zealand's
picturesque Queenstown, the management at Queenstown Airport
approached us here at Snowgrass Solutions to provide them with a
Pan-Tilt-Zoom PTZ camera solution to allow visitors to the site to
view the local beauty and for pilots to get a better idea of the local
weather conditions.
Views include the Airport runways, the Remarkables mountain range,
Coronet Peak ski area, Frankton Arm, the Crown Range and many others.
To improve the quality of the original Wanaka
webcam, Snowgrass Solutions were contacted by Lake Wanaka Tourism to
recommend and supply a high quality fixed webcam to provide high resolution
images for the Lake Wanaka Tourism website.
A P-T-Z live video camera has since been installed in a semi-remote
location, part way up Lake Wanaka. The installation included a high
speed radio data link back to the Lake Wanaka village.
Because the camera was mounted on a picturesque private homestead, a
purpose built mount was designed, constructed and professionally
coloured to lessen the visual impact of mounting the camera on the
roof.
This camera will complement the existing fixed camera by providing
live video and the ability to remotely control the camera via their
website.
Click here to visit the Lake Wanaka tourism website.
Web designers, Cabbage Tree Creative incorporate the images from the fixed camera into a user controlled time-lapse movie.
Select WEBCAM from the top of the page. From within the box that opens, select either WEBCAM or INTERACTIVE VIEW to see either the fixed camera or the PTZ video camera.
Fishing fleet communications network
With the demise of Telecom's analogue 025 network
and the unstable future of their current CDMA digital network, A
Lyttelton based fishing company required reliable company communications in the harsh and
remote environment off the South Island's East Coast.
Snowgrass Solutions designed and supplied an advanced Tait Mobile Radio
system
operating through a network of high altitude coastal repeater stations.
This provided reliable communications from vessel to shore and vessel to
vessel.
The coverage of the network selected by Snowgrass Solution has marine
voice and data coverage superior to cellular on the South
Island's East Coast and operates around the vast majority of New
Zealand's coastline.
Vessel safety was also taken into consideration
with the addition of GPS tracking to enable shore based management to
track the vessels and their daily history. GPS position data is stored
on a small data logger on the vessel and intermittently transmitted over the same coastal network used to provide the voice
communications.
The management at the company is able to log on to a secure
Internet based server to view the vessel's position on a map of New
Zealand and to view the vessel's track history.
Snowgrass Solutions is currently working with the manufacturer and operator of
the tracking service to add more specific maritime features such as
bathymetric marine charts and the ability to monitor the fuel
management systems on the vessels.
Mt Dobson webcam
As part of providing visitors to the
Mount Dobson website with a true representation of the current snow
conditions, an Axis 221 day/night camera was supplied to upload large
640x480 pixel images to the Mount Dobson website.
In addition to the image uploads, the camera can be viewed in
password-protected live video mode by management in nearby Fairlie.
Using their network connection with the mountain, video mode allows
them to better gauge wind speeds and snow fall to make more informed
decisions on whether to open the ski area or not.
In low-light conditions the Axis 211 camera automatically changes to
night mode by bringing an infrared filter into the sensor path,
bringing the light sensitivity down to 0.08lux.
Click here to
download brochure for the Axis 221 day/night camera. 356Kb
Tekapo Tourism webcam
To help provide a superior Tekapo
experience, Tekapo Tourism Ltd wanted to provide visitors to their
website with up to the minute information about what it was really
like in Tekapo.
To achieve this, an
Axis 213PTZ (Pan Tilt Zoom) camera was installed on the summit of a
nearby mountain and using a high speed radio data link over 3
kilometres to the village, the camera connects directly to a broadband
connection for access.
While night capable, the camera is not used in IR (black and white)
mode
The camera operates in two modes.
FTP image upload. The camera uploads regularly updated images
of the surrounding area to the Tekapo Tourism website. The views are
updated whenever the camera looks in a particular direction.
Live video mode.
In addition to uploading still images, the camera also provides
visitors to the site with live 1 frame per second video. Visitors have
a list of twenty views from which they can click on. Once a view is
selected the camera will pan, tilt and zoom to a preset view memorised
into the camera.
The camera's 26x lens can zoom in on even the most distant objects.
To keep broadband data costs managable, video sessions last 90 seconds
and can be restarted by reloading the page.
The camera has also been used to create a time lapse movie of the conditions in Tekapo over seven months.
Because the camera is a PTZ, the method of capturing the images did not result in a uniform capture interval, but still gives a good indication of how the climate in the area changed over the period.
> Click here to view the 11.1MB Flash movie on their site.
Real examples of wide angle and full zoom on the Axis 213PTZ 26x lens
Click here to
download the brochure for the (now discontinued) Axis 213PTZ. 323Kb
Snowgrass Solutions is a division of
Mackenzie Business Ventures Ltd
Roundhill Ski Field is set into the base of the Richmond Range, overlooking Lake Tekapo. They first approached Snowgrass Solutions in 2008 regarding the possibility of installing a sophisticated webcam near the top of the ski field, where the views were the best.
Pegasus Town, north of Christchurch, is an exciting project involving the building of an entirely new town, complete with lake and golf course, on the Pegasus Bay coast.
An established South Island based
developer approached Snowgrass Solutions regarding a camera system that would allow them to monitor remotely, a major construction project.
Snowgrass Solutions was contacted by a reputable Environmental Consultancy company in Auckland, regarding the design and installation of a remote video recording system for monitoring an area of interest, where power and an Internet connection was not available.
Several years ago we were contacted by a well
established aviation company with regard to designing and installing a
runway lighting system for their rural airport.
As
part of a major upgrade to Ohau Snow Field in 2008, Snowgrass Solutions
installed a P-T-Z webcam with spectacular views from the upper regions
of the mountain.
To improve the quality of the original Wanaka
webcam, Snowgrass Solutions were contacted by Lake Wanaka Tourism to
recommend and supply a high quality fixed webcam to provide high resolution
images for the Lake Wanaka Tourism website.
With the demise of Telecom's analogue 025 network
and the unstable future of their current CDMA digital network, A
Lyttelton based fishing company required reliable company communications in the harsh and
remote environment off the South Island's East Coast.
As part of providing visitors to the
Mount Dobson website with a true representation of the current snow
conditions, an Axis 221 day/night camera was supplied to upload large
640x480 pixel images to the Mount Dobson website.
To help provide a superior Tekapo
experience, Tekapo Tourism Ltd wanted to provide visitors to their
website with up to the minute information about what it was really
like in Tekapo.
