Parking-Spot

Locator Application

Van Buren Boys

Adrian A. Salazar

Ajay Joshi
Alex Humphries
Charles Goodrum
Michael Holloway
Michael Koch

Issued: April 27, 2012

Welcome

Contents
• Section 1: Introduction to our product
• Section 2: The Mechanics of the Application
• Section 3: Development
• Section 4: Documentation and Maintenance
• Section 5: Marketing
• Section 6: Conclusion

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Section 1

INTRODUCTION OF OUR PRODUCT

Background

• We developed for the past year a system to aid commuters of the

Discovery Park building to locate parking spaces for their vehicles.
• The idea is that the user would be able to access information about the
status of the parking lot that they are visiting.
• Many parking lots across our nation suffer from problems of this nature.

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Goal

• We want people to know where they can park in the building and thus
spend less time to search for it.
• Our product aims to implement a system using an image processing too
to locate parking spaces and transmit this information in a simple format
to the user via mobile application.

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Section 2

THE MECHANICS OF THE

APPLICATION
 • Camera takes images of the
Components
lot at appropriate
• Digital Camera resolution
•
• Go-Pro Hero 2

Image Processor
• Image Processor detects
• MATLAB
parking spaces and places a
• Server .txt file of binary logic
• Server Retrieves, stores and
• Web host

• MySQL

• Mobile Application sends data through

• Android OS v. 2.3 querying tables
• Application reads tables
and updates accordingly to
the server communication.
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 T- 60000

C
Compiler

Empty = 0
Occupied = 1

Web Host <script/>

Internet
Connection

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Camera
• The Go-Pro Hero 2Camera is
characterized by its fast interval of
picture taking.

• It is mounted on the roof of the

Discovery Park building, aiming at
the Parking Lot 2.

• It has a versatile rate of picture

snapping that allows our system to
have a fast rate of updating.

• Images saved on an SD card and

moves to the image processing
system for the next step.

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Image Processing

• The image arrives for processing in full color:

– The first step before doing anything is to grayscale the image
– Pin-cushion transform
• Flat the image, since it is being taken on a wide angle lens

– Edge Detection
– Histogram Detection
– Image Subtraction

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Edge Detection
Looks for edges in the parking spaces

Builds a ratio from the number or edge pixels

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Histogram Detection
The procedure for this test is to count the pixel intensities for number of
occurrences.

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These are histogram plots from the previous
slide’s images.

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Image subtraction

No change Change

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Server

• Acts as a data storage center

• Retrieves, stores and sends data accumulated from the image processor
• Programmed on MySQL
• Scripted tables with PHP to update
• Connects to both the image processor and the application
• On the web-server, it uses tables to refer to the parking spots

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Mobile Application

• Runs on Android OS v. 2.2

• Currently works for 4in screen phones
• The application uses a very simplistic screen to display the results of our
camera’s image processor.

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 APPLICATION DEMO VIDEO
This is a sample demonstration of our product in action. Note that for
purposes of testing and resources, we only implemented the system for
one parking lot.

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Section 3

THE DEVELOPMENT
 Timeline (August 2011- December 2011)

2011 Van Buren Boys Project

Aug September October November December

Team Project
Formed Presentation Revise Project Plan...

Project Plan Preliminary Design Project

Document Presentation

Requirements
Detailed Design Document Materials List
Document

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 Timeline (January 2012- April 2012)

2011 Van Buren Boys Project

January February March April May

Revised Test Plan Final User’s Guide Document Final Acceptance

Plan Document Test Document

Implementation Plan Document Final Maintenance Manual Document Project Final Report
Presentation

Launch App. To
GoPro Camera Server Host Image Proccessor
ALgorithm the Market
Delivered Running

Android SDK Succesful

Downloaded Connection

Camera Installation and Image Proccessor Coding

Primal Function of Application Application-Server Appliation’s HCI

Connection change

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Testing & Results

Camera Image Processor

• Snaps pictures at a good rate
• Weather proofed
• Easy to mount and dismount
• Sends pictures immediately
• Car detection with more than
90% accuracy
• Vacancy detection
• Dataset creation for the server
to use

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Testing & Results

Server
• Communicates with the
application
• Updates done automatically
through scripting
• Tables are easy to read through
Application
• Runs properly on 4in screen
phones with Android 2.2
• Catches errors correctly
• Opens and closes correctly
• Responds to User Interaction

2
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Section 4

DOCUMENTATION AND
MAINTENANCE
System Interaction
Image
processor

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Class Diagram

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Package Diagram

GoPro_Package

SD_CARD

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Components Diagram

GoPro_Package

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Maintenance
Camera and Image processor
• The camera needs to be cleaned
and adjusted every so often so
images remain accurate
• Image processor must have a
constant cleanup of files as
many files will expire or are too
old.
Server and Application
• Server must be up and run 24/7
and that information is always
accurate.
• Web services must maintain a
its fee payment.
• Application must maintain with
time and versions of phones and
code.
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Section 5

MARKETING
Our Client and Market

• We aim to release our product to the students, staff and faculty

members of Discovery Park to test it
• We also consider to expand our idea throughout all the building and
maybe go even further by implementing the idea for the entire campus
of UNT.
• We can go even further by selling the ideas to developing groups or
companies, but that would be a decision for another day.

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Android Market

• We plan to release this product through the Android Market and Google
Play in May, so people can start using the application and test it over the
summer to check for any malfunctions or bugs.
• Its use will be official for the next semester of Fall 2012.

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Future Considerations

• Certain considerations to the system have been thought

• We aim to increase the capacity of our technology all across the UNT
Campus.
• We also consider to develop the application for iPhones or any iOS
system.
• Finally, we think about making the product a profitable application

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Section 6

CONCLUSIONS
Review of Product

• Our product is an Android Application for standard mobile phones of 4in

screens and run the OS v. 2.2
• It aims to aid commuters of the Discovery Park building to locate parking
spaces for their vehicles.
• The idea is that the user would be able to access information about the
status of the parking lot that they are visiting at any time.

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Review of System

• The system follows 5 easy steps

– A camera snaps a picture
– Picture is sent to the image processor and makes binary values to determine
occupancy
– Values are stored to a server
– The application will try to talk to the server as often as possible and update a
simple representation of the parking lot.
– Rinse and repeat

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Q&A SESSION