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Linux Hits the Road

Posted by michael on from the roadkill dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Vicroads does regular surveys of the roads in Victoria, Australia, to determine where they need to be patched or otherwise repaired. It used to be done in a vehicle travelling at 20 kph: slow, tedious, and hazardous to the traffic around it. Now, thanks to Linux, it's being done at speeds of 80 to 100 kph. The Melbourne Age has the details. Short version: the cost has fallen from $1.2 million Australian to $850,000. Not bad..."

7 of 207 comments (clear)

  1. You know it's late... by kgarcia · · Score: 5, Funny

    Does it also map roadkill streaks?

  2. BFD by hazman · · Score: 5, Funny
    Short version: the cost has fallen from $1.2 million Australian to $850,000. Not bad..."

    So what. So they saved $36.83US. What's the big deal?

  3. Multiple FireWire cameras under Linux? by Animats · · Score: 5, Informative
    I'm amazed they got that to work. The FireWire hot-plugging support in Linux is a mess, doesn't handle the hard cases, and needs a complete redesign. Camera support is ugly, with a wierd interface between the application and the driver.

    (I wrote FireWire camera support for QNX, and looked at the Linux code to see how to do some things. It didn't help much.)

    (Windows support for FireWire is painful in a different way. It's incredibly complex, and has far too much kernel code, to allow for DRM. And the Video for Windows retrofit for FireWire is flakey.)

  4. But where will this technology go from here? by cvk · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This high-speed video capture is definitely the way to go for a first step, but of course the situation will be hugely improved when all that data can be taken back to the lab an scanned for drivability by software instead of by human brainpower.

    Perhaps when the sun is low shadows would be cast over potholes that would lead to lower temperatures inside the crater than on the surface of the road. That would make infrared cameras an obvious choice for picking out the cold-bottomed potholes.

    Or perhaps a rear vehicle could shine a light at an acute angle to the ground that would turn potholes into shadowy pits for easy detection by a forward vehicle on the other side of the pothole?

    So many possibilities. (So many challenges!)

  5. Linux not the answer by DerekLyons · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Actually reading the article shows that Linux is incidental to the 'breakthrough'. The improvement comes from video processing software, not from the operating system of the computers that perform the processing.

  6. sweet advert for OSS... by cubal · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And, surprisingly honest. I'm quite impressed with how honest they were about the problems they faced.

    And that's where OSS evangelism has to happen... showing that OS is better even with its problems, not that proprietary is worse and OS is perfect. Good for them :)

  7. Re:scary experience... by aspeer · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yep, We are really original here. Once Queensland, Victoria, New South Wales, Northern Territory and Tasmania were named it must of been pretty close to beer o'clock. You can imagine the conversation:

    Pioneer 1: So, we have two states left, one in the South and one in the West. Ideas ?

    Pioneer 2: South Australia and Western Australia - now for *^%* sake lets hit the pub.

    Pioneer 1: I like it. Lets go.