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DRADIS is my entry for the Vista Code Master Challenge

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What is DRADIS(Direction Range Distance)?  Well the name DRADIS is borrowed from a computer program / radar system from the television series Battlestar Galactica.  I’d like to think that my version accomplishes the same task – to provide valuable and interactive data to the pilot of a vehicle.  I’ve built DRADIS to be an application that runs beside a driver and aids them with their work tasks while driving.  Below I have linked to a video of an overview of DRADIS and some quick footage of my first real field test.

View larger res version on Google Video

There have been many attempts at mounting computers in cars — however the biggest problem is how a user can safely and easily interact with these devices while operating a moving vehicle?  The biggest part of making it safe is by keeping their eyes on the road and their hands on the wheel.  Using Windows Vista running on a Tablet PC this is achievable.  Vista is a key part to DRADIS because it offers a few important input/output features.  The .NET 3.0 suite provides great functionality but in terms of DRADIS these are the heavy hitters.

Output - Windows Presentation Foundation – WPF makes the graphics displayed to the user big, bright and beautiful.  Alliteration aside it allows for some very dynamic user interfaces.  This means that with a small screen it can display more vibrant information to a driver than any other kind of application.  With the use of fluid animations and rendered transparencies it allows for very flexible UI’s.  Not to mention that its vector based and rendered by a 3D accelerator.

Input – TabletPC API – Being able to easily capture pen input allows drivers to be able to navigate the application easily.  Having features like pen gesture recognition would allow drivers to tap in commands while keeping their eyes on the road.  Also having advanced character recognition would allow drivers to input data quickly with out having to lean over a keyboard. 

Input / Output – Speech Recognition and Synthesis API – This API allows users to completely interact with the application without taking any attention away from the road.  Using a simple command sets, users can easily navigate menus of applications and have content dictated back to them.

Now let’s talk about the main features in this milestone of DRADIS and what’s coming up.

Video dashboard

The main page of the application — it allows users to pick from multiple video feeds and then overlay information on top of it.   Right now I only have the video coming in with simple zooming functionality.  Also I have added a side panel that allows information from the other parts of DRADIS to be layered on top of the current video.  I am going to add an OCR scanning widget that will output overlays that show captured street signs and license plates.  Also it would be possible to analyze the outlines of cars.  I’m going to attempt this because it would be cool if I could build some kind of “Car scanner” than tries to figure the Make and model of other cars in the field of view.  This would be useful for Police cars to passively find stolen or illegally modified cars.

Content Dictation

This is my favorite feature — mostly because I want to read my RSS feed anywhere at any time.  Having the ability to pull down content in my driveway and then have it read to me on my drive to work is fantastic.  However it’s not just RSS, it’s any title/content text.  Directions from the mapping engine can be brought over to this section and items can be made manually.  I have the sound of my tablet going into the stereo system of my car.  Mix that with the voice recognition I am able to tell it to skip text I am not interested in. 

Mapping

Microsoft Streets and Trips is a great application (functionality wise) but not very visually pleasing or easy to use.  DRADIS combats this by offering the same information but in an easier to use format.  Directions can be made by typing in two addresses or by doing a GPS to direction search.  Results are then displayed in an itemized list that can be dictated to the driver.

Communications

No Pic

This part of the application did not make it into this milestone.  The idea is pretty simple – DRADIS uses the GPS device from Microsoft Maps and Streets.  In the future wireless internet will be either free or really cheap, so if every car has computers /w GPS systems in them, why not allow users to interact with each other?  The technology behind this is pretty simple.  All DRADIS clients will report their GPS locations to a central web server.  The server will then serve them proximity contact lists.  Users will be able to see what other DRADIS users are near by.  The communications between clients will be like “PictoChat” for the GameBoy DS.  However with DRADIS you will be able to draw on and share video frames and maps.  

It was challenging to get the application to this point!  I am very happy at what I have presented as my entry — I really feel that I hit on all the contest judging points. 

While this application is far from being complete I am confident that it really gets the idea across of how possible and valuable it would be to have this kind of setup in a car or truck.

DRADIS has gotten some attention! Check out these write ups!

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