Title: Information Management and Video Analytics: the Future of Intelligent Video Surveillance
Abstract: The need to monitor exists for many reasons. We use it as a mechanism to protect ourselves and our property, we use it to manage large numbers such as traffic information, we use it to monitor behaviour as in crowd surveillance, we use it to monitor production lines and operations and so on. While recognition of events or alarms may assist in reacting to it, a major objective of systems should be to be proactive, in other words, to prevent events. Video Surveillance has been with us for a long time. Traditionally it was used to display images on monitors, manned by guards or operators. This allowed us to view a number of places using less people and we could also perform patrolling duties from the safety of a control room. It satisfied the goals of safe patrolling and reducing manpower while performing the role of watchdog or guard. When video recording was introduced we found that we could create evidence of events that would be useful in prosecution, analysis, etc. As it became less expensive, more cameras were placed and of course more monitors. We could watch more areas with less people but very soon it became apparent that human beings have limitations. We also found that recording is an expensive exercise as video information is vast. At this point machine intelligence was introduced to assist with detection and also to reduce recording to be event driven, which of course made it less expensive. Initial techniques were crude with many false alarms but image analysis grew and became more sophisticated, resulting in better detection and even object recognition. Image quality improved, storage cost went down, less compression could be used and overall efficiency in terms of human intervention and prosecution success improved. This article will limit its scope to Information Management as it pertains to the security and traffic arenas, although much of this is clearly applicable in other areas as well. The chapter concentrates on the use of Video Analytics to achieve the various objectives as defined, but, as will be seen in the paragraph on Intelligent Information management, Video Analytics is merely a part of the complete system.