Generic Multimedia Database for Highway Infrastructure Management

Images of highway right-of-way are used widely by highway agencies through their photologging services to obtain visual information for the analysis of traffic accidents, design improvement, and highway pavement management. The video data usually are in analog format, which is limited in accessibility and search, cannot automatically display site engineering data sets with video, and does not allow simultaneous access by multiple users. Recognizing the need to improve the existing photologging systems, the state highway agency of Arkansas sponsored a research project to develop a full digital, computer-based highway information system that extends the capabilities of existing photologging equipment. The software technologies developed for a distributed multimedia-based highway information system (MMHIS) are presented. MMHIS removes several limitations of the existing systems. The advanced technologies used in this system include digital video, data synchronization, high-speed networking, and video server. The developed system can dynamically link the digital video with the corresponding engineering site data based on a novel algorithm for the data synchronization. Also presented is a unique technique to construct a three-dimensional user interface for MMHIS based on the terrain map of Arkansas.