Over the past few months I have been developing several applications which allow for image capture, tagging, and organization on PDA and desktop devices, all of which were demonstrated at the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) conference in Boulder, CO in early April.  Last week I had presented the imaging application to Lieutenant Mark Liebl of the NH State Police, who immediately recognized its value.  During a routine traffic stop, an officer will request identification from the individual under question, and as we all have done, he or she may have forgotten their drivers license at home.  In this situation Mark had stated that the information may be taken verbally and the individual’s status may be checked using the Records application of the Project54 system.  But what if the subject had given false information?  This is where the imager of the PDA comes into play.  After the verbal exchange, a photograph of the individual may be taken, and if necessary, reviewed at a later time to reveal the subject’s true identity.  Mark also believes that the imager could be used at the scene of most minor vehicle accidents. Here is a video which demonstrates the capturing and tagging techniques discussed above.

In addition to the imaging application, I have been developing two desktop applications which transfer and organize the images stored on the PDA.  The transfer application neatly synchronizes files stored on the desktop with those on the PDA, ensuring that duplicate files are not copied and that existing files are not overwritten.  Once the photographs have been transferred to the desktop PC, they and their tagging data may be easily viewed using the image management application.

 Michael A. Farrar

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