Graffiti Tracker applies NSA-style analysis to photographs of graffiti. BBC recently profiled the company.
BBC recently profiled the company:
Graffiti Tracker, the brainchild of graduate student and crime analyst Timothy Kephart, uses global positioning systems (GPS), digital photography and computer databases to track and catch graffiti artists.
The system - dubbed Graffiti Analysis/Intelligence Tracking System (GAITS) - takes pictures of graffiti, using GPS cameras that record the date, time and exact location.
It then extracts information from the photographs and provides reports of each incident of graffiti which can be matched against other graffiti stored on a computer database in an effort to track down the perpetrator.
Keeping a database of known graffiti means offenders can be charged with multiple counts of vandalism.
The ability to locate where graffiti occurs means work can also be tracked. In one case, the system showed that graffiti was located in close proximity to a suspect’s house, the park he used and the school he attended, providing compelling evidence for the police.
Now if we can only find a way to track and prosecute those pesky purveyors of poorly-designed billboards now littering our landscape…
On the opposite end of the graffiti spectrum: Graffiti Archaeology provides us with a timelapse collage of the graffiti on several walls in New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.
If you're new to Tightgrid, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
comments
Leave a Reply