Distributed omni-video arrays and digital tele-viewer for customized viewing, event detection and notification

Recent innovations in real-time machine vision, distributed computing, software architectures, and encrypted high-speed networking are expanding the available technology for intelligent camera arrays on televiewing and interactive applications. In this paper we describe research aimed at the realization of a powerful televiewing system using arrays of omnidirectional cameras. The video arrays provide an interactive, real-time, multiresolution televiewing interface to multiple people including physical security and emergency response crews simultaneously. Security measures such as authentication and network encryption are implemented on multiple platforms. Fusion of high-resolution rectilinear image over the omnidirectional image is also carried out. Computer vision techniques based on motion analysis are used for detecting interesting events. The televiewing system is verified for the performance as well as physically tested on the Super Bowl 2003 event for crowd detection and traffic monitoring.