I've been involved in the industry for considerable time and have found most vendor provided design tools to be mostly useless. I would be interested to know if there is a market for the tools I've created.
The first tool creates a camera view showing the calculated pixels / ft for any camera and lens combination. All that's needed is the active pixels per the sensor and the angle of view for a given lens. The system can also create a series of charts for a varifocal lens if you know the min max angles of view. It also calculates the area in sq ft.
The second tool is a bit more complex, If you know the Horizontal angle of view for a given lens, the sensor pixel density, the tool will dynamically calculate the vertical angles of view. The attached output shows a camera mounted at 10' CH=10, the Target height is 5' TH=5, and the distance to the target if 255' TD=255. The vertical angle of view for the given camera sensor lens combo calculates to 26 degrees VA=26.
When you adjust the top angle to the height of the target, and allow the lower angle to hit the ground where it naturally falls, we find the distance to the first sign of dirt is 19' and the camera will see almost 299' beyond the target.
This system is dynamic and simply drag-drop values..
All of these tools came about because of client needs, and the original tools were made in excel... I'd be interested to know if others have done the same. Cheers - AD
