Making Complex Hurricane Information Easy to Understand in a Crisis

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Miami maintains continuous watch on tropical cyclones over the Atlantic, Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico and Eastern Pacific. During hurricane season June 1 – November 30, the center broadcasts hurricane watches and warnings to the public via the news media, and to marine and military organizations. In off-season, NHC conducts research and provides training for U.S. emergency managers and representatives from countries affected by tropical cyclones. CHALLENGE: The NHC forecasters needed a way to clearly and quickly show the potential path and impact of a storm on satellite images and graphics, especially in cases that threatened public safety. Weather patterns, provided in high-resolution digital format, are often complex, but must be interpreted simply and plainly for television stations that want to broadcast the official NHC report. Oral interpretation was not enough. The NHC also needed a professional graphic solution. SOLUTION: NHC technical staff selected a Pointmaker CPN-5000 video processing telestrator with annotation, built-in scaler, capture, print and network capabilities. They installed the unit with a U-Touch touch screen overlay at their media briefing desk and at the parent organization: the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) in Camp Springs, Md. SETUP DETAILS: At the NHC English and Spanish media briefing desks, a forecaster draws his finger over a weather image displayed on a monitor that is framed by a thin touch screen overlay. The overlay’s optical sensors transmit the contact data to the Pointmaker CPN-5000, which sends both the image and annotations downstream to several displays. The forecaster can see the image and annotations on a built-in preview monitor, while the same image is displayed behind him for the camera on a 50” plasma display. The Pointmaker video marker not only helps the forecaster quickly describe where the storm might be heading, but his drawing motion is also a natural segue, leading viewer attention from himself to the image he’s marking. During off-season, the NHC puts the Pointmaker video marker to work in training sessions for emergency personnel, using this same room and technology. In the NCEP at Camp Springs, Md., the forecaster marks high-definition weather images by drawing his finger across a 65” plasma screen with touch overlay that is integrated with a second Pointmaker system. This setup eliminates projector shadows. RESULTS: Now, forecasters have a way to quickly and accurately annotate on a variety of digital weather images, helping to more clearly warn the public of impending threats or train officials for future response. And, they can select from a variety of marker colors and line widths to contrast any weather image. Particularly with the Pointmaker CPN-5000, forecasters also have the flexibility to use many different sources and displays in their system configuration. Also, because the Pointmaker CPN-5000 is compatible with many different computers and scan rates, forecasters can annotate high-resolution DVI scaled formats to selectable aspect ratios, and resolutions up to 1080p. If they need to, they could also annotate composite, Y/C, VGA and YUV images. The Pointmaker CPN-5000 can also offer capture and print capabilities allowing the presenter to print displayed images to a network printer or store images to a USB device, if needed. But it’s not the technology alone that wins and keeps Pointmaker customers. According to Supervisory IT Specialist Salim Leyva, the NHC has been using Pointmaker products for over a decade. “Pointmaker is reliable, flexible, and the units have outstanding longevity,” he says. “They continually improve their products to keep up with new technology, and their tech support is wonderful.” Boeckeler Instruments Inc. is a Tucson, Ariz.-based manufacturer of precision instruments, software and video measuring and marking devices (telestrators) for the industrial, biomedical and presentation markets. The company launched it’s Pointmaker line of telestrators in 1992 -- it’s 50th year -- and made its first non-sports national broadcast debut during the televised Simpson trial when attorneys used the Pointmaker to mark details of evidence presented to the jury on multi-media displays.