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January 18, 2007

Google for Cameras

From Chicago Tribune:

A story describing 3VR's search technology for camera footage. I noted this technology about a year ago when it received quite a bit of press. Here is a bit more detail on how it works:

We discard everything except the best two or three frames," he said. The system looks for images that are similar to each other, Ross said, and this produces many results that aren't right on target. "But if you get 100 images to look at and 10 of them are what you want, that's good enough," he said.

A system costs $4,000 to $16,000, depending on its analytical ability, according to 3VR. The company, which has financial backing from an arm of the Central Intelligence Agency, collects information associated with video images, Ross said.

It notes if there is motion, if a human appears to be moving and which way. It notices if something in a scene changes and when. All of this information can be reduced to bytes in a database that's quickly searchable. That serves as a sort of index to the video images associated with each observation. And the system becomes better with practice.

After being told that 10 different images are all of the same hotel employee, Strand said his system can locate that employee viewed on any of the Talbott's cameras with about 80 percent accuracy.

Posted by rshah at January 18, 2007 02:55 PM

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