3-D COMPUTER VISION MODELING IN VIDEO SURVEILLANCE APPLICATIONS

Intelligent Video Analysis (also called Video Analytics, VA) represents the key function of new generation Video Surveillance Systems, to support security operators in the management of video information from a large number of cameras displaced in the scene. The chapter is addressing the problem of human detection and tracking in a variety of applications, with the objective to perform all the process of scene analysis directly in world 3D coordinates by using video-camera data mainly for hypothesis validation. This centralized supervision approach (a single brain with many eyes) is supposed to manage an arbitrary number of stationary cameras, depending on the available computational power. A fairly accurate camera calibration process is required to predict the position in time and space of the targets in the scene. A simple 3D model is proved to be sufficient to describe not only rigid objects, but also the articulated flexible shape of humans in the hypothesis of low resolution targets and wide field of view. A few examples of possible applications to video surveillance are referred including standard optics and wide-field panoramic cameras (fish-eye lens).