The National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSTDA) is working with the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) to develop an open digital closed-circuit television app that will integrate digital CCTV cameras from state and private agencies.
The move to advance analytic city surveillance will pave the way for Bangkok to become a digital city and, more importantly, help to improve security for citizens, a growing worry in light of the recent Bangkok bombing.
"The Erawan Shrine bomb attack is a trigger to shift the existing CCTV system of human monitoring to an intelligent video analytic system for a more automated security system," said Passakon Prathombutr, senior director for service research and innovation programme at the NSTDA.
The agency has sponsored a 2-million-baht research fund for the AIT to develop a digital CCTV platform, free open software that integrates cameras from different vendors installed in public and private organisations to increase video analysis through a cloud-based system.
The platform can set parameters to increase safety, filter suspicious objects and speed up traffic congestion detection.
The digital CCTV platform can also be used for healthcare purposes such as detecting accidents involving the elderly in homes, he added.
"Anyone can download the app (https://github.com/ait-vgl/OpenCCTV) from our website for free," said Mr Passakorn.
In the quest to build a safer city, he said other technologies that can complement the digital CCTV platform include motion sensors and low-cost wireless fixed broadband communication systems.
"The recent bomb blast might stimulate investment in digital surveillance to grow 30% in the next 12 months," said Suwich Chitkasemsuk, managing director of DigitalCom, a leading CCTV distributor.
The local CCTV market is worth 3-4 billion baht per year and is expected to grow annually by 20-25%. In Thailand, there is equal deployment of digital and analogue CCTV systems.
As for the digital IP surveillance system, cameras are able to detect objects in dim lighting and adjust the picture to a usable image, said Thongchai Watanasoponwong, country manager of Axis Communications Indochina, a unit of the Swedish IP surveillance maker.
The advanced video analytic can help authorities find suspects faster as the software can find the suspect or object in every camera.