Interactive Panoramas from Pan-Tilt-Zoom Cameras

 

 

Objectives:

 

Pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) cameras provide high resolution at widely separated viewing directions. Making panoramas (mosaicing) at the highest resolution requires large amounts of memory. Minimizing the memory requirements, without exaggerating the computational requirements, is a central objective of this thesis.

 

Considering that PTZ cameras are designed to rotate about the projection center, provides a simple projection model and the use of cubemaps. However, the lack of parallax prevents direct depth estimation, and therefore limiting zoom (saving the storage of zoom levels) according to minimum object sizes. Alternatively, depth information can be obtained by auxiliary sensors, as other cameras. Then, the depth information may be used to select the maximum zoom level to save at each location of the panorama.

 

This project is based in the research and development of next fundamental components:

(i) pan-tilt-zoom camera geometric modeling and calibrating

(ii) representation limiting according to depth

(iii) scene representation for multiple zoom levels (constant pan and tilt)

(iv) scene representation for multiple zoom levels and poses

 

 

Previous dissertations with related work:

 

"Surveillance with Pan-Tilt-Zoom Cameras: Background Representation", Gonçalo Serras, MSc Thesis, Electrical and Computer Engineering, IST -Sept. 2021

https://fenix.tecnico.ulisboa.pt/cursos/meec/dissertacao/1409728525633164

 

"Mosaicing with Pan-Tilt-Zoom Cameras", Rodrigo Serra, MSc Thesis, Electrical and Computer Engineering, IST - Oct.2020.

https://fenix.tecnico.ulisboa.pt/cursos/meec/dissertacao/1409728525633020

 

"Calibration of Surveillance Cameras based on an Auxiliary Color-Depth Camera", Diogo Góis, MSc Thesis, Electrical and Computer Engineering, IST - 2019/2020.

https://fenix.tecnico.ulisboa.pt/cursos/meec/dissertacao/1691203502343985

 

"Background Representation and Subtraction for Pan-Tilt-Zoom Cameras", Luís Alves, MSc Thesis, Electrical and Computer Engineering, IST - 2017/2018. More information.

 

"Cooperating Smart Cameras", Tiago Marques, MSc Thesis, Electrical and Computer Engineering, IST - 2014/2015. More information.

 

"Vision Based Multi-Target Tracking", Pedro Silva, MSc Thesis, Electrical and Computer Engineering, IST - 2013/2014. More information.

 

"Multitasking of Smart Cameras", Tiago Castanheira, MSc Thesis, Electrical and Computer Engineering, IST - 2012/2013. More information.

 

"Target Tracking with Pan-Tilt-Zoom Cameras", Diogo Leite, MSc Thesis, Electrical and Computer Engineering, IST - 2010/2011. More information.

 

 

Historical references:

 

Frame-Rate Omnidirectional Surveillance & Tracking

http://vast.uccs.edu/~tboult/frame/Boult/index.html

 

Video Surveillance and Monitoring

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~vsam/

 

 

Requirements (grades, required courses, etc):

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Localization:

ISR / IST

 

Observations:

 

Previous works conducted at ISR/IST provide good starting points for the thesis. In particular a number of software prototypes already exist for target detection, tracking and camera scheduling.

 

 

More MSc dissertation proposals on Computer and Robot Vision in:

 

http://omni.isr.ist.utl.pt/~jag