IBM Smart Surveillance System (Previous PeopleVision Project)

[ibm] The IBM Smart Surveillance system (S3) is developed by the Exploratory
Computer Vision Group
in IBM
T.J.
Watson Research Center
. The system is a middleware
offering for use in surveillance systems and provides video based
behavioral
analysis capabilities. Release 1 of the Smart Surveillance System
provides two
components

  • Smart Surveillance Engine (SSE) which provides the front
    end video analysis capabilities.
  • Middleware for Large Scale Surveillance (MILS) which
    provides data management capabilities.


Operational
Capability:

The S3-R1
system draws on some of the Smart Surveillance technologies created by
IBM Research. S3-R1 provides the following functionality.

  • Web
    based Real Time Alerts
    including  Motion Detection, Directional Motion,
    Abandoned Object, Object Removal & Camera Move/Blind: User
    Designed Alerts:
    Specified
    using simple SQL like interface.
  • Web
    based Event Search
    using Object
    Type, Object Size, Object Speed, Object Location, Object Color, Track
    Duration & Compound Queries
  • Web
    based Event Statistics
    including
    Distributions & Moments

Commercial
Availability:

The S3-R1
system is currently available to end customers on a pilot basis.
Business partners can also  license the
technology for product development.

Application
Scenarios
 While being
able to provide real time alarms to “pre-programmed” events is useful,
the ability to search through event
data and understand patterns enables new “security strategies”.

Force
Protection:

Understanding long term  patterns of
activity and the ability to search through events can help identify
potential vulnerabilities.

Border
Monitoring:
While
real-time alarms are useful, reacting to a large number of real time
alarms is infeasible. Understanding patterns of
violations for effective deployment of patrols is critical.

Large
Scale Investigations:
In large
scale investigations like the Washington Sniper incident, the ability
to sift through large numbers of
surveillance video tapes to identify commonality is essential.

Smart Surveillance Technology Base:

  • Object
    Detection
    in the
    presence of distraction motion
  • 2D Object
    Tracking:
    Multi-object
    tracking with occlusion resolution.
  • Object
    Classification:
    View
    independent object classification.
  • 3D Object
    Tracking:
    Precise 3D
    location using standard cameras.
  • Multi-scale
    Tracking:
    Automatic PTZ
    Camera control to track objects.
  • Multi-camera
    Handoff:
    The ability
    to track an object across cameras.
  • Face
    Cataloging:
    Captures
    faces at large distances from the camera.
  • XML
    Metadata Representation
    for object
    and its motion attributes.
  • Extensible
    Engine Architecture
    for plug and
    play video analytics.
  • Real Time
    Event Indexing:
    Scene events
    are instantaneously available for searching in a distributed database
    environment.
  • Web
    service interfaces for Event Search & Retrieval 
    support the
    rapid application development of customer specific applications.
  • Scalable
    Backend System:
    COTS
    database technology allows for both distributed surveillance and
    scalability.

Research Areas:

Source: http://www.research.ibm.com/peoplevision/