BlackBox: 39N was founded to close the gap between how often coal ash embankments are inspected and how quickly they can fail. We believe the earliest warning signs of structural failure are already visible in the drone photogrammetry utilities capture — if every survey actually gets analyzed.
Full bio coming soon.
Our approach builds on a concept for image segmentation and tension-crack detection documented in peer-reviewed, publicly available research. BlackBox: 39N's model, training data, and implementation are our own — purpose-built for this surface type, this crack morphology, and this failure mode.
We are not building a general-purpose computer vision platform. Every part of the system — the imagery pipeline, the detection model, the reporting format — is built around one failure mode: tension cracking in coal ash embankments.
That focus is deliberate. It lets us go deep on a single, well-understood risk instead of shallow across many, and it keeps every output squarely in the hands of the engineers responsible for the facility.
A tool for engineers. Never a replacement for them.
We work directly with utility engineering teams, asset integrity groups, and the engineering firms supporting them — not procurement generalists. Available under NDA before any imagery changes hands.