Intruder
detection, face zooming.
MSc dissertation proposal 2009/2010
Observit
- Target Tracking with Pan-Tilt-Zoom Cameras
Introduction:
While most nowadays video surveillance
systems aim to document events happening in the field of view, too few of them
actually try to optimize the imaging quality of the events. In many cases one
is able to see that a number of robbers broke into a store, but there is not
enough zoom towards any of them allowing the recognition of the face.
Detecting and tracking events, such as
intrusions, is therefore a desirable property for the modern video surveillance
systems. In this work we want precisely to research and develop some detection
and tracking methodologies.
This work will be conducted in conjunction
with the company Observit, www.observit.pt,
under a protocol with IST/DEEC.
Supervision: Prof.
José Gaspar, Prof. Alexandre Bernardino, Eng. Bernardo Motta
(Observit).
Objectives:
The objectives of this work are twofold: (i)
construction of a user interface
allowing the manual selection of the region to track; (ii) programming of an algorithm for tracking and zooming the selected area, encompassing a robust
controller of the pan and tilt axis of the camera. At the end is expected a
successful demonstration of the tracking of a person in a room, having
eventually obstacles as tables between the person and the camera.
Detailed description:
Using pan and tilt cameras to track people and mobile objects, e.g.
cars, is still a very active research-and-development topic mainly because of
the extremely wide variability one can observe in the shape of a person walking
or in the almost infinite options of clothing textures and colours. Even in the
case of cars, the situation is similar, as not only one finds a very wide
variety of shapes, as in addition one has to account the perspective effects
associated to the various poses of the cars.
Nevertheless, one finds that some camera manufacturers are already evolving
to provide some conveniences such as intrusion detection or face tracking
applications. For example Panasonic is proving a camera with a two step zoom
that places a detected person occupying a significant area allowing than to be
more identifiable (see Fig.2).
Fig.2 Commercial pan, tilt and zoom camera.
Notice the zooming after detecting the person.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQKGhIPiqs8
Even with these modern cameras, some aspects continue to be challenging,
such as locking on one person and avoiding influences from obstacles (e.g.
people or vehicles crossing in front of the camera), or handing-over the events
found in one camera to a neighbouring one. Recognizing that the automation of
mobile cameras has still a long walk to be done, with this work we look to find
contributions to the state of the art.
The objective of this work is stated therefore briefly as the
implementation of an automatic tracker of people, or mobile objects, using
mobile (pan and tilt) cameras. More specifically, the work-proposal consists of
implementing image segmentation [Nascimento06], using representations adequate
for pan-tilt cameras [Sinha04, Vicente09], and selecting proper controlling
modalities.
The work is organized in the following main parts:
1) construction of an user interface allowing
the manual selection of the region to track: the system operator selects a
salient area in the image (e.g. part of the clothing of a person, or a pattern
drawn in a car) and the mobile camera tracks the selected region
2) programming of an algorithm for segmenting
and tracking of the selected area
3) implementation of a robust controller,
computing the pan, tilt and zoom control signals of the camera
The collaboration with the Observit company, besides bringing to the work references on
commercial systems, is also a contact point with potential clients for the
system.
References:
[Nascimento06] "Performance Evaluation of Object Detection
Algorithms for Video Surveillance", Nascimento,
J.C.; Marques, J.S.; IEEE T-Multimedia, V8.4, 2006 pp:761
- 774.
[Sinha04] "Towards Calibrating a Pan-Tilt-Zoom Camera
Network",
[Vicente09] "Assessing Control Modalities
Designed for Pan-Tilt Surveillance Cameras", Diogo
Vicente, Jacinto C. Nascimento, José Gaspar,
RecPad'09.
[OpenCV] Open Computer Vision Library, http://sourceforge.net/projects/opencv/
Expected results:
At the end of the work the students will have enriched their knowledge
in:
* Computer vision
* Video Surveillance
Examples of expected demonstrations in simulated and/or real
environments:
* Tracking of a person walking in a room
* Tracking of the person having some obstacles in between (e.g. tables
or chairs)
Observations:
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More MSc dissertation
proposals on Computer and Robot Vision in:
http://omni.isr.ist.utl.pt/~jag