Interactive Camera Network Design using a Virtual Reality Interface

Traditional literature on camera network design focuses on constructing automated algorithms. These require problem specific input from experts in order to produce their output. The nature of the required input is highly unintuitive leading to an unpractical workflow for human operators. In this work we focus on developing a virtual reality user interface allowing human operators to manually design camera networks in an intuitive manner. From real world practical examples we conclude that the camera networks designed using this interface are highly competitive with, or superior to those generated by automated algorithms, but the associated workflow is much more intuitive and simple. The competitiveness of the human-generated camera networks is remarkable because the structure of the optimization problem is a well known combinatorial NP-hard problem. These results indicate that human operators can be used in challenging geometrical combinatorial optimization problems given an intuitive visualization of the problem.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figure

Real-time image streaming over a low-bandwidth wireless camera network

In this paper we describe the recent development of a low-bandwidth wireless camera sensor network. We propose a simple, yet effective, network architecture which allows multiple cameras to be connected to the network and synchronize their communication schedules. Image compression of greater than 90% is performed at each node running on a local DSP coprocessor, resulting in nodes using 1/8th the energy compared to streaming uncompressed images. We briefly introduce the Fleck wireless node and the DSP/camera sensor, and then outline the network architecture and compression algorithm. The system is able to stream color QVGA images over the network to a base station at up to 2 frames per second. © 2007 IEEE

Optimal Camera Placement to measure Distances Conservativly Regarding Static and Dynamic Obstacles

In modern production facilities industrial robots and humans are supposed to interact sharing a common working area. In order to avoid collisions, the distances between objects need to be measured conservatively which can be done by a camera network. To estimate the acquired distance, unmodelled objects, e.g., an interacting human, need to be modelled and distinguished from premodelled objects like workbenches or robots by image processing such as the background subtraction method. The quality of such an approach massively depends on the settings of the camera network, that is the positions and orientations of the individual cameras. Of particular interest in this context is the minimization of the error of the distance using the objects modelled by the background subtraction method instead of the real objects. Here, we show how this minimization can be formulated as an abstract optimization problem. Moreover, we state various aspects on the implementation as well as reasons for the selection of a suitable optimization method, analyze the complexity of the proposed method and present a basic version used for extensive experiments.Comment: 9 pages, 10 figure

eCandy Evolutionary Camera Network Deploy

Tableau d’honneur de la Faculté des études supérieures et postdoctorales, 2010-2011Les systèmes de surveillance vidéo comme méthode de prévention et de protection connaissent une popularité grandissante. Cependant, des études tendent à démontrer que le placement des caméras est généralement inadéquat, se soldant en des systèmes à efficacité limitée. Ce mémoire propose une méthode permettant le placement automatique d'un nombre variable de caméras dans un environnement arbitraire en vue d'en optimiser le coût et la performance. Nous développons une formulation de la problématique pouvant servir à l'expression générale de plusieurs problèmes de placement de caméras. Les problèmes sont résolus grâce à un algorithme évolutionnaire, utilisant une représentation à taille variable, qui produit en sortie un ensemble de solutions exprimant les compromis possibles entre le coût et la performance. L'analyse qualitative des solutions est réalisée à l'aide de trois paradigmes de visualisation développée pour ce projet. Nous analysons trois problèmes concrets résolus par l'algorithme

Smart camera network for surveillance system

This paper describe a novel method to locate two dimensional position and orientation of smart cameras in a network, using depth and angle information of a person moving around an area. The area is described by the viewing frustum seen by all the cameras. In this scheme each camera is provided by a face detection algorithm to detect the person and by a stereo vision for its depth estimation. These relative measurement are send to a central node to build the entire sensors map. The system is very scalable thanks to the low data communication bandwidth requirements. This method could be used to implement distributed surveillance systems and other high level applications such as environmental modeling, 3D model construction or object tracking