A software security expert is celebrating a decade of protecting the City of London 10 years after its iconic video recording and management software were first installed.
Jay Patel, the founder of the SharpView system, first installed the Multi-MegaPixel CCTV solution at CityPoint, 1 Ropemaker Street, in November 2006. This is recognised as the world’s first deployment of multi-megapixel cameras in a live CCTV application.
Unusually, CityPoint’s SharpView system captured protesters dressed as Batman and Spiderman heading to a Fathers 4 Justice protest on 19 October 2007.
CityPoint was the first building in the City of London to exceed the height of St Paul’s Cathedral when it was built in 1967 as a 122m 35-storey headquarters for British Petroleum.
SharpView was further developed into a full-blown VMS platform when chief executive officers Patel and Francisco Feijoo restructured the company and formed EyeLynx Limited in July 2012.
Since then, current generations of EyeLynx systems have gone into The Shard and The Broadgate Tower to provide City buildings with state-of-the-art CCTV and video analytics in response to a continuing severe threat level from international terrorism.
EyeLynx is now part of the integrated perimeter protection group Zaun, with offices in Chessington, Surrey, and Zaragoza in Spain. Built-in capabilities for video content analysis and integration of numerous detection technologies, including RADAR, mean that SharpView remains the highest performance HD, MegaPixel CCTV recording and management system in the security industry.
Patel said: “While construction and other markets have been subdued for much of the 10 years since we created SharpView, terrorism and other threats have driven the demand for ever more innovative security measures, which has enabled us to keep ahead, stay busy and grow.”
EyeLynx recently launched the EPR-100 and EPR-500 RADARs to enhance security protection at large sites. The management software works seamlessly within SharpView to allow the autonomous control of PTZ cameras, thereby dramatically cutting annual critical infrastructure security budgets by reducing the reliance on human patrols and manned guards.
The RADARs detect moving objects in any weather conditions, even at night, up to 500m away, with minimal false alarms. As a result, SharpView provides early warnings to security staff and allows them to verify potential threats of intruders on protected sites, such as public utility sites, military bases, national borders, solar farms, airports and large campuses.
