BigAl
4th September 2010, 03:51 AM
I've just come across this 4 page NIST memo that I don't believe has been posted before. It describes how NIST handled all the imagery for WTC1/2. It apparently predates the WTC7 research but it's safe to guess that NIST applied the same techniques to WTC7 imagery.
This memo seems relevant whenever MM, BS or C7 refer to imagery to support their assertions.
I'll guess that the bittorrent image dump we may be about to get is, if it is in the terabytes, will the total haul (10,000 images/300 hours of video) that NIST reduced to 7,100 images/75 hours video after eliminating redundant and useless material.
http://www.fire.nist.gov/bfrlpubs/fire05/PDF/f05173.pdf
Use of Visual Imagery for the NIST World Trade Center Investigation
William M. Pitts, Kathryn M. Butler, and Valentine Junker
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Gaithersburg, MD 20899
INTRODUCTION
The attack on the World Trade Center (WTC) in new York City on September 11, 2001 by terrorists flying hijacked commercial aircraft into the two towers (WTC 1 and WTC 2) was among the worst building disasters in the history of the United States. In response, Congress requested that the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) investigate the technical causes for the disaster. NIST publicly announced its Building and Fire Safety Investigation of the World Trade Center Disaster on August 21, 2002. On October 1, 2002, the National Construction Safety Team Act was passed by Congress, and the Investigation was carried out under the authority provided by this act. A draft copy of the final report dealing with the WTC towers was released for public comment on June 23, 2005. [1] It consists of an overall summary report, eight project reports, and 34 supporting technical reports totaling over 10,000 pages. The final version will be available in late September or early October.
Complete versions are available on the investigation website at wtc.nist.gov. The eight projects that made up the Towers Investigation dealt with applicable building codes, baseline building performance and aircraft impact, analysis of structural steel, active fire protection, thermal environment, structural collapse mechanisms, occupant egress, and emergency response. Since both towers collapsed, little physical evidence was available to guide the investigation.
As a result, models for the aircraft impact, fire behavior, heat transfer to structural elements, and building performance were crucial for determining the causes of the collapses. Primary sources of information for estimating initial conditions, guiding, and validating the results of the models were analyses of structural steel, review and analysis of available imagery of the event, and eyewitness accounts. This presentation focuses on the collection, organization, and use of visual imagery during the Investigation.
The visual analysis task was carried out as part of Project 5, which is summarized in the Project Report Reconstruction of the Fires in the World Trade Center Towers. [2] The work that forms the basis of this presentation is described in detail in the Task Report Visual Evidence, Damage Analysis, and Timeline Analysis. [3] The primary output for this task was a series of Excel worksheets describing window-by-window observations of window condition (open or closed), smoke flow (none visible, light, or heavy)]and fire (none visible, spot fire, fire inside, and external flaming). Worksheets were generated for each of the four faces of the two towers for multiple times between the times that the aircraft struck a tower and the collapse of that tower. The intervals between worksheets varied between two and six minutes.
...
NIST worked with numerous organizations such as the commercial photo agencies, local and network television, local newspapers, the New York City Police Department, the Fire Department of the City of New York, and various archives assembled to document the events of September 11th. Additional
imagery shot by individuals was identified by searches on the world-wide web, by referrals from other sources, and by public appeals during public Investigation progress updates. Ultimately, over 300 hours of video and 10,000 photographs were collected by NIST.
... it was still necessary to provide means for accessing and searching the large amount of collected material. This was accomplished using a commercial database program, Cumulus, which is designed to provide access to and organization of visual assets. A large number of attributes including such details as faces of the towers visible, whether or not fire was visible, imagery showing the aircraft impacts, presence of NYPD or FDNY personnel, etc. were associated with each asset. Separate data entry sheets were developed for photographs and videos within Cumulus. It was possible to perform sophisticated searches of the database based on these attributes. The results of these searches could be displayed as thumbnails, which allowed quick review of large numbers of assets. Ultimately, the database grew to include 7,118 photographs and 6,932 video clips representing over 75 hours of video. In additional to material from numerous organizations, videos from approximately 40 individuals and photographs from over 140 individuals were included.
VISUAL ASSET TIMING
A major focus of this effort was the development of timelines for the observed fire behavior in the towers. In order to accomplish this task it was necessary to provide times of known accuracy for the visual assets. Some relative timing information was available from digital photographs and videos, which often include embedded camera clock times in their outputs. However, the absolute accuracy of such internal clocks varied widely, and the times were not generally sufficiently well known. Analog material usually did not contain time information and had to be timed individually by comparison with material of known times. An approach was adopted for timing in which assets in the database were tied directly or indirectly to a single event, the impact of the aircraft on WTC 2, which was defined to have occurred at 9:02:54 a.m. based on information available in an earlier FEMA investigation [4] of the events on September 11th. Numerous photographs and over 20 videos recorded the approach and impact of this aircraft. ...
This memo seems relevant whenever MM, BS or C7 refer to imagery to support their assertions.
I'll guess that the bittorrent image dump we may be about to get is, if it is in the terabytes, will the total haul (10,000 images/300 hours of video) that NIST reduced to 7,100 images/75 hours video after eliminating redundant and useless material.
http://www.fire.nist.gov/bfrlpubs/fire05/PDF/f05173.pdf
Use of Visual Imagery for the NIST World Trade Center Investigation
William M. Pitts, Kathryn M. Butler, and Valentine Junker
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Gaithersburg, MD 20899
INTRODUCTION
The attack on the World Trade Center (WTC) in new York City on September 11, 2001 by terrorists flying hijacked commercial aircraft into the two towers (WTC 1 and WTC 2) was among the worst building disasters in the history of the United States. In response, Congress requested that the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) investigate the technical causes for the disaster. NIST publicly announced its Building and Fire Safety Investigation of the World Trade Center Disaster on August 21, 2002. On October 1, 2002, the National Construction Safety Team Act was passed by Congress, and the Investigation was carried out under the authority provided by this act. A draft copy of the final report dealing with the WTC towers was released for public comment on June 23, 2005. [1] It consists of an overall summary report, eight project reports, and 34 supporting technical reports totaling over 10,000 pages. The final version will be available in late September or early October.
Complete versions are available on the investigation website at wtc.nist.gov. The eight projects that made up the Towers Investigation dealt with applicable building codes, baseline building performance and aircraft impact, analysis of structural steel, active fire protection, thermal environment, structural collapse mechanisms, occupant egress, and emergency response. Since both towers collapsed, little physical evidence was available to guide the investigation.
As a result, models for the aircraft impact, fire behavior, heat transfer to structural elements, and building performance were crucial for determining the causes of the collapses. Primary sources of information for estimating initial conditions, guiding, and validating the results of the models were analyses of structural steel, review and analysis of available imagery of the event, and eyewitness accounts. This presentation focuses on the collection, organization, and use of visual imagery during the Investigation.
The visual analysis task was carried out as part of Project 5, which is summarized in the Project Report Reconstruction of the Fires in the World Trade Center Towers. [2] The work that forms the basis of this presentation is described in detail in the Task Report Visual Evidence, Damage Analysis, and Timeline Analysis. [3] The primary output for this task was a series of Excel worksheets describing window-by-window observations of window condition (open or closed), smoke flow (none visible, light, or heavy)]and fire (none visible, spot fire, fire inside, and external flaming). Worksheets were generated for each of the four faces of the two towers for multiple times between the times that the aircraft struck a tower and the collapse of that tower. The intervals between worksheets varied between two and six minutes.
...
NIST worked with numerous organizations such as the commercial photo agencies, local and network television, local newspapers, the New York City Police Department, the Fire Department of the City of New York, and various archives assembled to document the events of September 11th. Additional
imagery shot by individuals was identified by searches on the world-wide web, by referrals from other sources, and by public appeals during public Investigation progress updates. Ultimately, over 300 hours of video and 10,000 photographs were collected by NIST.
... it was still necessary to provide means for accessing and searching the large amount of collected material. This was accomplished using a commercial database program, Cumulus, which is designed to provide access to and organization of visual assets. A large number of attributes including such details as faces of the towers visible, whether or not fire was visible, imagery showing the aircraft impacts, presence of NYPD or FDNY personnel, etc. were associated with each asset. Separate data entry sheets were developed for photographs and videos within Cumulus. It was possible to perform sophisticated searches of the database based on these attributes. The results of these searches could be displayed as thumbnails, which allowed quick review of large numbers of assets. Ultimately, the database grew to include 7,118 photographs and 6,932 video clips representing over 75 hours of video. In additional to material from numerous organizations, videos from approximately 40 individuals and photographs from over 140 individuals were included.
VISUAL ASSET TIMING
A major focus of this effort was the development of timelines for the observed fire behavior in the towers. In order to accomplish this task it was necessary to provide times of known accuracy for the visual assets. Some relative timing information was available from digital photographs and videos, which often include embedded camera clock times in their outputs. However, the absolute accuracy of such internal clocks varied widely, and the times were not generally sufficiently well known. Analog material usually did not contain time information and had to be timed individually by comparison with material of known times. An approach was adopted for timing in which assets in the database were tied directly or indirectly to a single event, the impact of the aircraft on WTC 2, which was defined to have occurred at 9:02:54 a.m. based on information available in an earlier FEMA investigation [4] of the events on September 11th. Numerous photographs and over 20 videos recorded the approach and impact of this aircraft. ...