Introduction

Dash is a new cross-platform product designed to help you get the most out of your GPS camera. It has the basic expected features including playback of video and integration with Google Maps. It also has value-added features...

Why?

The spark for this project was the fact that the playback software included with the otherwise excellent RoadhawkHD camera was limited to either Windows or macOS, and excluded Linux. The provided software is quite basic in terms of functionality and to make matters worse, the software is implemented using Adobe AIR and proved to be somewhat glitchy. With the provided software there is also no way to extract and export the GPS data for use in other applications, nor is there any way to adjust the video to try and get a better picture.

Why is Dash Better?

Dash is a cross-platform native desktop application, written in C++ using the latest Qt framework. macOS, Linux and Windows are all supported with equal functionality.

A native application does not need any cumbersome run-time environment, and looks and feels like all of your other native desktop applications.

Dash also provides some essential missing features such as video adjustments (brightness, contrast, gamma, saturation and hue). This can be useful because while the cameras do provide a decent picture at night, more detail can be found in the video by applying these adjustments. Even with daylight video the video adjustment tools can improve the picture.

Tools are provided to annotate your journeys, marking events and locating them on the integrated map. Video playback can then be synchronised with the events on the timeline with notifications popping up at the appropriate time. The annotations can all be exported for use in other applications.

Dash also provides a way to export all of your GPS data. You can export the raw GPS records stored in the video as text, or structured decoded data as JSON XML, or CSV - all ready for use in whatever other applications you want.

Rather than just displaying all of your video data, Dash also collates and structures the media by date/time and identifies multiple media files that may comprise individual journeys.

Dash cameras tend to capture journeys in one-minute, or some other fixed period, segments - Dash enables you to merge these many discrete video files into a single video by journey or according to your selection.

Current State of Dash

This is a new product, usable but currently still in development and at an early-access phase. If you're interested in testing out a development version please send an email to the address at the bottom of this page.

More Information

If you represent a GPS camera manufacturer or distributor, and you would like to consider including Dash, or a rebrand and/or customisation of Dash with your packaged cameras, please contact us at the address at the bottom of this page to discuss your requirements.