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What is FLOW and why use it

Get familiar with our revolutionary traffic analysis framework and see how you can detect any traffic task or event you can think of.

DataFromSky avatar
Written by DataFromSky
Updated over a week ago

At DataFromSky, we work at the cutting edge of artificial intelligence to create safer and smoother ways to travel. We believe that by providing the right traffic insight and control solutions, we can contribute to solving one of the most pressing problems of today. That’s why we created FLOW—a powerful tool for converting any video stream into a stream of actionable intelligence.

Recently, cameras have proven to be a very efficient sensor for smart city applications. Unfortunately, different application scenarios required searching for dedicated hardware, matching it with suitable software, and integration into the control system of the AI city. This “application hell” incurred an enormous cost to the smart city integrators.

We are bringing a completely new model into this environment: FLOW - a powerful solution capable of converting any camera into a smart sensor that you design yourself. And redesign in a few months, if the requirements change in the meantime. Covering a wide range of applications, FLOW is a game-changing solution for the smart cities of tomorrow.

What is FLOW?

FLOW is a comprehensive platform for the analysis of traffic movements based on our proprietary AI, machine learning, and trajectory-based approach. It’s easy to configure, it runs in real-time and it can talk to other devices and systems.

With FLOW, you can turn any camera into a smart sensor for adaptive control of traffic lights. In a few clicks, you can create a parking sensor to make your parking lot alive. Counting the number of pedestrians struggling to cross the road has never been easier. Or detecting dangerous driving. It is very versatile, easy to use, and able to run on diverse platforms, be it in the cloud or at the edge.

We’ve created a unique environment with a focus on clean, efficient, and pleasing user experience. Define your task interactively, in no time. Enjoy an overview of the situation while being able to drill down to the slightest detail effortlessly. 

Solution with a pedigree

The traditional world of traffic surveys is based on counts, stimulating no dramatic progress since 1937 when the first traffic recorder was deployed. We were the first on the market to extract precise traffic analytics from drone footage in 2013. We introduced a trajectory-based paradigm to traffic analytics, exponentially increasing the wealth of available information. Since then, we’re a worldwide-recognized leader in the field, bringing never-before-possible insights into traffic. We identify all the cars, vans, pedestrians, and other traffic participants, classify them and track them. We measure their positions, velocities, idle times, and all the other relevant parameters to present a rich and accurate description of the traffic situation. Automatically, effortlessly.

With a background in university research, we’re proud to offer unparalleled accuracy of our results reaching 98%. What is more, we’re able to upgrade this to a unique 100% accuracy guarantee by careful postprocessing, an unmatched offer in the industry.

Our safety analysis identifies dangerous driving behavior and detects accidents before they happen. It has even been certified by the Ministry of Transport of the Czech Republic. Our accurate data are used for calibration of traffic simulation models in PTV Vissim and other major tools.

Preferred by the traffic consultancies and engineering companies such as Cowi, GHD, WSP, or Leidos, we serve our customers to provide better and more efficient traffic solutions. We offer cutting-edge absolute accuracy of the data (reaching 30 cm positional and 7.5° angular absolute accuracy) and are hence the suppliers of numerous automotive companies (VW, Audi, Toyota, ...) to train their behavioral models for self-driving cars. Our traffic AI is able to merge multiple video streams, re-identify the traffic participants and provide a complex analysis of entire municipalities—enabling unique projects such as the recent Open Traffic dataset based on 10 drones monitoring traffic simultaneously for several consecutive days. We’re active in R&D projects with leading universities and research organizations (TU Munich, TU Dresden, EPFL Switzerland, Austrian Institute of Technology...) and we run an Academy program with more than 20 members to empower the next generation of traffic engineers. We’re a proud member of the Nvidia Metropolis program and have been awarded in Deloitte Technology Fast 50CE as the 23rd fastest-growing technology company in the Central Europe region with a 729% revenue growth over the past three years.

Visual traffic programming language

We’ve been looking for a user interface that could unleash the potential of the AI core while being able to support the broad range of applications that FLOW can serve. We wanted an intuitive environment, where you could design a complex task without any programming knowledge. At the same time, the environment had to be robust and prepared for field deployment to match the system in time-critical applications. We couldn’t rely on tiny option boxes and complicated settings.

That’s why we selected the visual programming paradigm and reinvented it for traffic analysis scenarios—an approach where you can literally see the data flow through the solution. Intuitive, powerful, and flexible to support your imagination in designing any traffic task you can think of. A visually pleasing environment that perfectly matches the features and philosophy of the FLOW system.

A powerful and versatile tool

We’ve taken our widely-acclaimed DataFromSky analysis core, added real-time processing capability, pleasing user interface, multi-platform support, and open API for 3rd parties and we got: FLOW. Where you previously had to use dedicated solutions or build the data processing pipeline from a number of diverse tools, you can now deploy a single FLOW environment in an overwhelming number of scenarios. People counting, traffic analyses, adaptive traffic lights, parking management, incident detection, perimeter protection, crowd management…you name the application. You can create infrastructure sensors for smart city applications easily, in a single environment.

We’ve even built custom hardware so that we can provide you with a turn-key solution for real-time traffic monitoring from a drone (Real-Time Monitoring Drone) or existing CCTV cameras (Traffic Embedded). Any camera network can be converted into a cooperative smart traffic sensor array by FLOW Enterprise running on your own servers. For ultimate ease of deployment, we offer our cloud traffic analytic solution (AI.DataFromSky). You can also integrate FLOW into your own hardware and offer a new groundbreaking product to your customers. Same as Bosch, who has integrated FLOW into their new cameras.

Conclusion

FLOW is designed to be a visual traffic solver for the AI cities of tomorrow. Turn research questions into answers. Turn optimized control schemes into reality. Let the traffic flow with FLOW.

Continue your tour to learn more.

We will be happy to answer any questions you may have. Contact us!

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