PICS Data Usage
We all know that data can sometimes be a scarce and valuable resource. In South Africa, where PICS was envisioned and developed, mobile data is not cheap and sometimes is not of great quality.
PICS, as you can tell by the name, is built to take advantage of the image capture functionality of smart devices and of course, when you use our image capture and processing functionality, at some point, you will have to upload an image from your smart device to our server.
We faced a complex problem of our no-compromise functionality with the consideration
of limited internet connectivity. We have developed a two part solution, part one is available now and part two will be available within the coming months, keep an eye out for the announcement. Part one is an algorithm that leverages the capabilities of the smart device to resize and compress images before upload, almost instantaneously. This means that when you upload an image to the PICS server, it’s using only as much data as is absolutely necessary.
Time is Money
So what if PICS is good at dealing with image uploads? To put it simply, time and cost. An average smart device may capture high resolution images which are 1-5Mb in size. The higher the megapixels, the larger the image files. The current OOB rate for a large telecoms provider is R1 per Mb. If you were to email a single image to someone, that would cost a few Rand. However, uploading a single image to PICS uses less than 0.1Mb. On average, PICS uses twenty times less data than a simple email with an image attached.
Time, if your connection is not great, you can still load your images quickly. PICS doesn’t require a very high bandwidth connection to function correctly. Nobody using PICS will be left standing around waiting for something to upload before continuing with the required work.
Okay, so we know PICS is using your internet connection efficiently on site, how about when you’re back at your desk? Our administrative reporting system has you covered. It’s fast, efficient and intuitive and still improving every day. You are able to view all the data collected on site in one place and then download the report for your records. A single PDF report containing 20 images can use less than 2Mb of space. So it’s fast and easy to download, is more useful and takes up far less space to archive.
The PICS blog is authored by Kusasa Information Systems (Pty) Ltd managing director, Craig Baker. All information contained herein represents his personal opinion. Kusasa and/or Craig Baker do not take any responsibility for inaccurate or outdated information contained herein. If you are going to re-post or reuse any information on this page, please reference the original.