Synchronised multimedia for engineering and scientific analysis

Abstract

Engineering tests and scientific experiments use a variety of techniques to simultaneously record phenomena that frequently are not well correlated to the human's visual and cognitive timeframe. Therefore, the captured data are subsequently analysed in a different timeframe using, for example, slow motion or time lapse, and in some cases the playback rate is variable in a more complex manner. We term this condition time elasticity. We present methods to achieve synchronism amongst the range of media streams captured whilst consuming a low overhead of computing resource. These schemes allow for variable start times and extents for individual media streams as well as providing for variable time increments both within one medium and across a range of media elements. The techniques have been demonstrated within a system for the analysis of vehicle crash tests.