Government – Front Line

REPORTING:

For Public Works and Government Services Canada and Transport Canada, on one of the largest remediation sites in Canadian history – Tremain Timelapse is providing automated daily timelapse through an online portal, panaroma 50 megapixel construction photos, automatically compiled weekly timelapse and hand edited monthly timelapse video.

With the daily timelapse portal Public Works, Transport Canada and over 10 contracting companies and stakeholders can view, tag and discuss each day’s visual data which is in the form of a 1 minute daily timelapse.

 

Timelapse is also used in construction reports, meetings, strategy sessions and in presentations to stakeholders. Monthly timelapse is sent to senior staff in Ottawa for reporting purposes and integrated into the government’s project management software.

It has become an important piece of a multi-faceted project management and reporting system and Tremain Visual has become an integral part of this project’s documentation, reporting and project management process.

 

REPORTING AND PROMOTION – PANORAMA:

Weekly panoramas from a camera located on a dam at a BC Hydro facility  is used in monthly construction reports to the public as well as internal reporting. This camera which views a portion of the construction for a new generating station will be collecting visual data for the next three years. The panoramas have been used in newspaper press releases – a news editor said, “this is the best construction photo I have ever seen.” What she didn’t know was that photo was actually made up of of over 100 HD photos – taken automatically on a grid and stitched together in our cloud computation computer.

We program our pan, tilt, zoom (PTZ) cameras to take hundreds of HD photos on a grid creating an up to 50,000 megapixel panorama construction photo. That translates to a printed poster over 17 feet in length. For various clients we print office size posters 4 feet in length.

ARCHIVAL:

Our cameras captured a turbine replacement project at one of the tallest earthen-filled dams in the world and we amassed over 7 million photos. Our automated data system makes the processing of this data elegant and seamless which allows for easy access to time-lapse video during the project life-cycle and after its completion. Timelapse video and individual photos of the project are in long-term archive for reference for future engineers (beyond 60 years) for the next turbine replacement project.

This archiving service has also been done by Tremain Visual for a tar well remediation and a dam decommissioning.

 

CANADA-ONLY CLOUD INFRASTRUCTURE FOR FEDERAL PROJECTS:

Tremain Timelapse developed innovation in Canadian cloud and data delivery systems to build a Canada-only portal where daily timelapse is served on a secure online timelapse portal within Canada. The complete Tremain Timelapse cloud system was re-built on Canadian servers – the computation engine that holds the Tremain Timelpase software is located at 151 Front Street in Toronto – one of the top five co-location hotels in the world. This provides a high-level of physical and data security and integrity. All this is connected with a Canada-only data line which was built in conjunction with IT architects at Shaw.

 

REMOTE:

Working on the Heber River Diversion decommissioning project – land and river naturalization – we were in a remote location with no power, no cell and no satellite.  We captured two months of timelapse data. We brought in our remote power specialist to help us set up our system and we brought in a camera person to retrieve the data and feed it to the timelapse cloud system.

 

SAFETY:

Cameras are being set up at a remote mercury mine remediation to allow First Nations, stakeholders, Ministry of Forests personnel and SNC Lavalin managers visual access to a hazardous site that is not safe or easily accessible.

This will reduce site safety incidents, making sure only a core team needs to physically access the site.

 

This reduction in unnecessary visits is true of all of our Tremain Visual projects.  Site visits by lay-persons are drastically reduced thus increasing site safety. Our remote timelapse and monitoring systems have also been used to review, analyze and report on safety incidents that have taken place. (Photos of the Bralorne Takla Historic Mercury Mine from the Province of British Columbia’s “Crown Contaminated Sites Program: 2014 Biennial Report – Sustainable benefits for British Columbians through land restoration.” (page 21))

 

 TRAVEL AND ENVIRONMENTAL:

Transport Canada, Quantum Murray and Anchor SEA uses live monitoring, automated daily timelapse served through a secure online portal, live-monitoring cameras and large-scale panoramas to view an island work site from the mainland. This saves in travel costs and time associated with travel. For a remote site five hours north of Prince George; the Ministry of Forests, Takla First Nations and SNC Lavalin will be able to view a mercury mine remediation without the travel and time it would take to get there, saving travel costs and lowering their carbon footprint.

 

TIMELAPSE PROMOTION:

Daily timelapse is assembled in full project edits and used as stand-alone video. It has been incorporated into  documentaries, incorporated into interactive touch-screens, used by news outlets, submitted for awards (for example the world infrastructure awards and the BC remediation awards), used for internal and external promotion, and assembled and edited for Ministers, First Nations and a number of stakeholders to celebrate the projects.

ANALYZE:

Daily timelapse of a tar well remediation by BC Hydro is used by their environmental manager for a qualitative analysis of the efficacy of processes that take place on site. It deepens, and is used in conjunction with, the scientific data collected in on-site reporting.

 

EDUCATION:

Timelapse video is also used – by all clients – as an efficient way to illustrate to stakeholders, clients, managers and executives – complex construction processes not easily grasped by photos and text based material alone. Timelapse video was the cornerstone of a presentation from Transport Canada to engineering students at University of Victoria. Timelapse of both a tar well remediation and a dam decommissioning have been used as educational tools internally at BC Hydro by environmental and engineering personnel.