A distributed camera system for multi-resolution surveillance

We describe an architecture for a multi-camera, multi-resolution surveillance system. The aim is to support a set of distributed static and pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) cameras and visual tracking algorithms, together with a central supervisor unit. Each camera (and possibly pan-tilt device) has a dedicated process and processor. Asynchronous interprocess communications and archiving of data are achieved in a simple and effective way via a central repository, implemented using an SQL database. Visual tracking data from static views are stored dynamically into tables in the database via client calls to the SQL server. A supervisor process running on the SQL server determines if active zoom cameras should be dispatched to observe a particular target, and this message is effected via writing demands into another database table. We show results from a real implementation of the system comprising one static camera overviewing the environment under consideration and a PTZ camera operating under closed-loop velocity control, which uses a fast and robust level-set-based region tracker. Experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach and its feasibility to multi-camera systems for intelligent surveillance

Cognitive visual tracking and camera control

Cognitive visual tracking is the process of observing and understanding the behaviour of a moving person. This paper presents an efficient solution to extract, in real-time, high-level information from an observed scene, and generate the most appropriate commands for a set of pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) cameras in a surveillance scenario. Such a high-level feedback control loop, which is the main novelty of our work, will serve to reduce uncertainties in the observed scene and to maximize the amount of information extracted from it. It is implemented with a distributed camera system using SQL tables as virtual communication channels, and Situation Graph Trees for knowledge representation, inference and high-level camera control. A set of experiments in a surveillance scenario show the effectiveness of our approach and its potential for real applications of cognitive vision

The acquisition of coarse gaze estimates in visual surveillance

This thesis describes the development of methods for automatically obtaining coarse gaze direction estimates for pedestrians in surveillance video. Gaze direction esti- mates are beneficial in the context of surveillance as an indicator of an individual's intentions and their interest in their surroundings and other people. The overall task is broken down into two problems. The first is that of tracking large numbers of pedestrians in low resolution video, which is required to -identify the head regions within video frames. The second problem is to process the extracted head regions and estimate the direction in which the person is facing as a coarse estimate of their gaze direction. The first approach for head tracking combines image measurements from HOG head detections and KLT corner tracking using a Kalman filter, and can track the heads of many pedestrians simultaneously to output head regions with pixel-level accuracy. The second approach uses Markov-Chain Monte-Carlo Data Association (MCMCDA) within a temporal sliding window to provide similarly accurate head regions, but with improved speed and robustness. The improved system accurately tracks the heads of twenty pedestrians in 1920 x 1080 video in real-time and can track through total occlusions for short time periods. The approaches for gaze direction estimation all make use of randomised decision tree classifiers. The first develops classifiers for low resolution head images that are invariant to hair and skin colours using branch decisions based on abstract labels rather than direct image measurements. The second approach addresses higher res- olution images using HOG descriptors and novel Colour Triplet Comparison (CTC) based branches. The final approach infers custom appearance models for individual scenes using weakly supervised learning over large datasets of approximately 500,000 images. A Conditional Random Field (CRF) models interactions between appear- ance information and walking directions to estimate gaze directions for head image sequences.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

The acquisition of coarse gaze estimates in visual surveillance

This thesis describes the development of methods for automatically obtaining coarse gaze direction estimates for pedestrians in surveillance video. Gaze direction esti- mates are beneficial in the context of surveillance as an indicator of an individual's intentions and their interest in their surroundings and other people. The overall task is broken down into two problems. The first is that of tracking large numbers of pedestrians in low resolution video, which is required to -identify the head regions within video frames. The second problem is to process the extracted head regions and estimate the direction in which the person is facing as a coarse estimate of their gaze direction. The first approach for head tracking combines image measurements from HOG head detections and KLT corner tracking using a Kalman filter, and can track the heads of many pedestrians simultaneously to output head regions with pixel-level accuracy. The second approach uses Markov-Chain Monte-Carlo Data Association (MCMCDA) within a temporal sliding window to provide similarly accurate head regions, but with improved speed and robustness. The improved system accurately tracks the heads of twenty pedestrians in 1920 x 1080 video in real-time and can track through total occlusions for short time periods. The approaches for gaze direction estimation all make use of randomised decision tree classifiers. The first develops classifiers for low resolution head images that are invariant to hair and skin colours using branch decisions based on abstract labels rather than direct image measurements. The second approach addresses higher res- olution images using HOG descriptors and novel Colour Triplet Comparison (CTC) based branches. The final approach infers custom appearance models for individual scenes using weakly supervised learning over large datasets of approximately 500,000 images. A Conditional Random Field (CRF) models interactions between appear- ance information and walking directions to estimate gaze directions for head image sequences.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

The acquisition of coarse gaze estimates in visual surveillance

This thesis describes the development of methods for automatically obtaining coarse gaze direction estimates for pedestrians in surveillance video. Gaze direction estimates are beneficial in the context of surveillance as an indicator of an individual's intentions and their interest in their surroundings and other people. The overall task is broken down into two problems. The first is that of tracking large numbers of pedestrians in low resolution video, which is required to identify the head regions within video frames. The second problem is to process the extracted head regions and estimate the direction in which the person is facing as a coarse estimate of their gaze direction. The first approach for head tracking combines image measurements from HOG head detections and KLT corner tracking using a Kalman filter, and can track the heads of many pedestrians simultaneously to output head regions with pixel-level accuracy. The second approach uses Markov-Chain Monte-Carlo Data Association (MCMCDA) within a temporal sliding window to provide similarly accurate head regions, but with improved speed and robustness. The improved system accurately tracks the heads of twenty pedestrians in 1920x1080 video in real-time and can track through total occlusions for short time periods. The approaches for gaze direction estimation all make use of randomised decision tree classifiers. The first develops classifiers for low resolution head images that are invariant to hair and skin colours using branch decisions based on abstract labels rather than direct image measurements. The second approach addresses higher resolution images using HOG descriptors and novel Colour Triplet Comparison (CTC) based branches. The final approach infers custom appearance models for individual scenes using weakly supervised learning over large datasets of approximately 500,000 images. A Conditional Random Field (CRF) models interactions between appearance information and walking directions to estimate gaze directions for head image sequences.</p

Colour invariant head pose classification in low resolution video

This paper presents an algorithm for the classification of head pose in low resolution video. Invariance to skin, hair and background colours is achieved by classifying using an ensemble of randomised ferns which have been trained on labelled images. The ferns are used to simultaneously classify the head pose and to identify the most likely hypothesis for the mapping between colours and labels. Results from video sequences demonstrate that an improved posterior estimation using learnt colour distributions reduces classification error and provides accurate pose information in images where the head occupies as little as 10 pixels square.

BENFOLD, REID: GUIDING SURVEILLANCE BY TRACKING HUMAN ATTENTION 1 Guiding Visual Surveillance by Tracking Human Attention

We describe a novel method for directing the attention of an automated surveillance system. Our starting premise is that the attention of people in a scene can be used as an indicator of interesting areas and events. To determine people’s attention from passive visual observations we develop a system for automatic tracking and detection of individual heads to infer their gaze direction. The former is achieved by combining a histogram of oriented gradient (HOG) based head detector with frame-to-frame tracking using multiple point features to provide stable head images. The latter is achieved using a head pose classification method which uses randomised ferns with decision branches based on both HOG and colour based features to determine a coarse gaze direction for each person in the scene. By building both static and temporally varying maps of areas where people look we are able to identify interesting regions.

The acquisition of coarse gaze estimates in visual surveillance

This thesis describes the development of methods for automatically obtaining coarse gaze direction estimates for pedestrians in surveillance video. Gaze direction estimates are beneficial in the context of surveillance as an indicator of an individual's intentions and their interest in their surroundings and other people. The overall task is broken down into two problems. The first is that of tracking large numbers of pedestrians in low resolution video, which is required to identify the head regions within video frames. The second problem is to process the extracted head regions and estimate the direction in which the person is facing as a coarse estimate of their gaze direction. The first approach for head tracking combines image measurements from HOG head detections and KLT corner tracking using a Kalman filter, and can track the heads of many pedestrians simultaneously to output head regions with pixel-level accuracy. The second approach uses Markov-Chain Monte-Carlo Data Association (MCMCDA) within a temporal sliding window to provide similarly accurate head regions, but with improved speed and robustness. The improved system accurately tracks the heads of twenty pedestrians in 1920x1080 video in real-time and can track through total occlusions for short time periods. The approaches for gaze direction estimation all make use of randomised decision tree classifiers. The first develops classifiers for low resolution head images that are invariant to hair and skin colours using branch decisions based on abstract labels rather than direct image measurements. The second approach addresses higher resolution images using HOG descriptors and novel Colour Triplet Comparison (CTC) based branches. The final approach infers custom appearance models for individual scenes using weakly supervised learning over large datasets of approximately 500,000 images. A Conditional Random Field (CRF) models interactions between appearance information and walking directions to estimate gaze directions for head image sequences.This thesis is not currently available in ORA

A distributed camera system for multi-resolution surveillance

Bellotto N., Sommerlade E., Benfold B., Bibby C., Reid I., Roth D., Fernandez C., Van Gool L., Gonzalez J., ''A distributed camera system for multi-resolution surveillance'', 3rd ACM/IEEE international conference on distributed smart cameras - ICDSC 2009, August 30 - September 2, 2009, Como, Italy.status: publishe