The City of North Richland Hills, between Dallas and Fort Worth, has two major interstates nearby creating a high level of traffic and visitors for the municipality. Sean O. Hughes, CFO and Emergency Management/Homeland Security Coordinator for the city, received a mandate from the City Manager to provide video surveillance of all critical infrastructure and upgrade to IP technology for any future system expansion.

Hughes explained the situation as the city looked to expand surveillance, “We had six different analogue DVR systems, four different vendors, only a few security cameras could be networked, and nothing was integrated.” Hughes’ goal was to find one solution that integrated all the city’s security cameras so they could be viewed using one piece of software. Lensec provided both the video management software and the expertise to design and install the upgrades, while providing for future expansion.

The first new security cameras were planned to provide interior and exterior views of the city’s tennis centre. The primary concern here was break-ins to cars parked at the facility. Around this time, North Richland Hills installed an expensive piece of outdoor art located on the grounds of the library, creating a demand for high-level protection. Finally, Hughes wanted to install new cameras at the city’s waterpark for perimeter surveillance and to capture license plates at the single entrance/exit point. Lensec recommended Iqinvision’s Iqeye HD megapixel cameras and Hughes readily agreed. Eventually, additional Iqeye cameras would also be installed at the city’s court complex.

Once the Iqeye cameras had been installed, it was time for Lensec’s Jaime Bradford to introduce Hughes to the many additional features the cameras offer. Along with easy installation, industry-leading stability, and crystal clear images, the Iqeye cameras include a software feature called IQ Vcam. IQ Vcam provides multiple, unique high or low resolution views selected from the overall scene, essentially creating multiple cameras out of one to provide Hughes’ security staff independent views that can be moved and digitally zoomed. At the same time, Vcam reduces overall bandwidth and storage demands by transmitting only the selected views back to the servers and not the entire multi-megapixel camera field of view.

Hughes immediately recognised the IQ Vcam feature was perfect for providing the coverage he needed for the outdoor art installation. “I love the versatility of the Iqeye cameras, I purchase one asset but get multiple features—one camera, several high-resolution views, and less traffic on the network. Not only are we getting four views from one camera but this is aesthetically pleasing for us too. This is a brand-new library, so the overall look is important. I didn’t want to hang 15 security cameras off this beautiful new building.”

Hughes continued, “Iqinvision has solved our most pressing needs to have multiple views with various resolution levels, our city administration and City Council are happy about minimizing the equipment on a brand new building, and accounting is quite pleased that we’ve increased overall productivity with the same equipment at a lower cost.”

North Richland Hills is about to start construction on a new Recreation Center. Hughes explained how this will be the first building in the city in which video is being designed in prior to construction. “As we did the walk-through, we looked for places where we can put the Iqeyes. This will be a Silver LEED building, so it will be getting a lot of attention.”

Each Iqeye will be getting a lot of attention too, as Hughes and Bradford decide which Iqeyes to utilise the IQ Vcam feature to create additional views, while minimizing the security footprint, and cutting installation and maintenance costs. “We currently have plans to use all of our IQeye cameras in multi-view [Vcam] mode if needed. We’ve also talked about moving the Iqeye cameras to expand our views and give us exactly what we need,” Hughes said.