Virtual Reality-Based Interface for the Control of Multiple Surveillance Cameras

1. Virtual Reality-Based Interface for the Control of Multiple Surveillance Cameras Hamed Sabri, Saad Khattak, Bill Kapralos, Khalil El-Khatib, and Mouhcine Guennoun University of Ontario Institute of Technology. Oshawa, Ontario, Canada. L1H 7K4

2. Overview (1): • Introduction • Motivation • Goals • Graphical User Interface Overview • Graphical User Interface Scheme • Conclusions • Demo

3. Introduction (1): • Immediate Need for Surveillance Applications in a Large Number of Areas • Demands for homeland security have increased immensely in the last few years particularly after several current natural and man-made disasters • Government agencies are reviewing their policies and updating/upgrading their home-land security, emergency preparedness, and emergency management toolboxes • Law enforcement, personal security, commercial, military, homeland security, etc.

4. Introduction (2): • Immediate Need for Surveillance Applications in a Large Number of Areas (cont.) • Many surveillance systems exist but • Rely on existing infrastructure  “hard-wired” • Difficult to easily move from location to location • Can be expensive and tedious to install in existing environments  for example, the drilling of walls and ceilings to allow for internet and power connections • Cannot necessarily be established promptly in cases of emergency

5. Motivation (1): • Monitoring of Many Surveillance Cameras • How can we efficiently control and monitor a large number of cameras ? • Using humans to do so is not necessarily cost-effective  does not scale! • Humans can miss potentially important events altogether  this can have serious consequences! • Many applications where monitor and control of a large number of cameras where simple interface to control and monitor a large number of cameras is vital

6. Goals (1): • Develop Graphical User Interface That Allows for the Simple Control and Monitoring of a Large Number for Surveillance Cameras • Employ virtual reality technology • Allow for simple control of each camera in the environment being monitored • Pan-tilt, zoom, brightness adjustment, etc • Allow user to access all cameras of the environment

7. Interface Overview (1): • Description • The graphical user interface scheme presented in this • Consists two components: i) Three-dimensional virtual room set-up (rendering). ii) Camera views.

8. Graphical User Interface Scheme (1): • 3D Virtual Room Set-up • The virtual room is an accurate three-dimensional model of the environment being monitored • Manually constructed using Autodesk's 3ds Max although any other comparable modeling software package can also be used) • Level of detail can vary depending on the needs of the application.

9. Graphical User Interface Scheme (2): • 3D Virtual Room Set-up • Included within the model is a number of virtual cameras , one for each camera within the real environment • Each virtual camera is positioned within the virtual environment such that its position corresponds to the real-world camera it represents • Interface allows user to navigate through the environment in order to locate cameras that may not necessarily be within their current field of view (within the virtual model).

10. Graphical User Interface Scheme (2): Virtual Cameras

11. Graphical User Interface Scheme (3): • 3D Virtual Room Set-up • Examples

12. Graphical User Interface Scheme (4):

13. Graphical User Interface Scheme (5):

14. Graphical User Interface Scheme (6):

15. Graphical User Interface Scheme (7):

16. Graphical User Interface Scheme (8): • Camera Views (cont.) • When user chooses to view the video from a camera, live feed is provided in a separate window • Can view output of one, four, and 16 cameras in one window • With multiple camera views  user has option of manually choosing camera views they wish to monitor or the views can be provided automatically by the system

17. Conclusions (1): • Summary • Virtual reality-based 3D user interface scheme for the control of a large number of surveillance cameras • Interface consists of a realistic (rendered) 3D view of the environment being monitored • “Virtual cameras” are included in this 3D view, positioned at a location corresponding to their location in the real environment • Human operator is able to navigate through rendered environment and easily control the cameras in the real environment via interaction with the corresponding virtual camera

18. Conclusions (2): • Future work • The work presented today is ongoing and currently, various additions and modifications are being investigated • Currently evaluating the user interface with human subjects to evaluate its effectiveness • Will incorporate ‘intelligence” into the vision system  intelligent vision systems can be used to automatically detect and monitor particular events

19. Demo virtual room (Rawkee-X3D) (1)

20. Demo virtual room (X3D) (2) • What is X3D? • X3D is a royalty-free open standards file format and run-time architecture to represent and communicate 3D scenes and objects using XML. It is an ISO standard that provides a system for the storage, and playback of real time graphics content embedded in applications, all within an open architecture to support a wide array of domains and user scenarios.

21. Demo virtual room (X3D) (3) • X3D Features at a Glance • XML Integrated: the key to integration with: • Web Services • Distributed Networks • Cross-platform, inter-application file and data transfer • Evolutionary: easy to update and preserve VRML97 content as X3D • Broadcast/Embedded Application Ready: from mobile phones to supercomputers • Real-Time: graphics are high quality, real-time, interactive, and include audio and video as well as 3D data. • Well-Specified: makes it easier to build conformant, consistent and bug-free implementations

22. Demo virtual room (Rawkee-X3D) (4)

23. Demo virtual room (Rawkee-X3D) (5)