Upon leaving University, I joined CSIRO and was thrown straight in the deep-end as the solo developer of the system software for the RoadCrack road-survey vehicle.
The prototype vehicle was capable of imaging the road, processing and classifying cracks down to 1 mm resolution at 105 kmph.
The software interfaced with custom FPGA based image acquisition hardware, distributing the image data from industrial line-scan cameras via high speed frame grabbers and a network of 5+ Digital Alpha computers which performed the processing. Data was reported to a front-end control user interface in real-time.
Image processing code developed elsewhere in CSIRO extracted cracking and classified each image. Development predated contemporary machine learning algorithms and relied on classical computer vision techniques.
The opportunity to work on the RoadCrack project and the support of the crew at CSIRO was instrumental in kicking off my ongoing career in innovative, R&D driven companies.
More details on RoadCrack at https://csiropedia.csiro.au/roadcrack-1999/ and check out a promo video at https://csiropedia.csiro.au/automated-pavement-crack-detection-and-classification-1994/