Guest Blog | To the Point

Video in Virtual CRASH

By Lou Peck — April 25, 2025

I had a blast this week hanging out with the crew at the 2025 Symposium on EDR Research and Training, hosted by NAPARS and CA2RS. With family in town, I was only able to attend yesterday’s festivities, where I presented some recent exploration and testing of alternative (non-EDR) motorcycle data sources. However, I heard great things about the entire conference and all the speakers, which included some real heavy hitters.

I also got a chance to sit down with master physicist and Virtual CRASH, LLC CEO, Bob Scurlock, to get a demo of VC’s new photogrammetry and video analysis tools. Very impressive stuff.

The software now includes tools that allow users to determine a camera's location, focal length, and distortion characteristics. The foundational methodology is nothing new… they’re using photogrammetric principles and methods that have been around for a long time (check out this 1992 paper, for instance, if you’d like to dig into the calibration procedure). However, the implementation is very well executed and because the tools are integrated with a highly capable simulation platform, the possibilities are vast.

Here's a quick taste of what you can do with photos and videos:

  • Solve for camera location, focal length, and distortion

  • Map roadway evidence

  • Perform reverse projection photogrammetry

  • Automatically or manual track points in a video to determine the object's speed

  • Automatically track multiple objects in a video

  • Use dash cam video to determine a vehicle’s speed by point tracking

  • Use an image for the simulation background, generating truly realistic renderings, very quickly

VC has also included tools to facilitate filtering, sensitivity analyses, and redundancies to bolster confidence. As you can see below, in this photograph that was not staged at all, I was amazed.

 
 

I've been a VC user for 8+ years and continue to be impressed. If you'd like to dive deeper into the photogrammetry and video tools, Chapter 26 of the User's Guide covers things in great detail. It’s a great program worth a look!

Thanks for reading along, keep exploring.

Lou Peck
​Lightpoint | Axiom

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