Q+A CENTER

Optical Wireless dba Delta-Image (Grapevine, Texas)

The Imaging Challenge

"Change Blindness" is a well-documented phenomenon. Military experiments have demonstrated that after 12 minutes of continuous viewing of two or more sequencing monitors, an operator will miss up to 45 percent of all scene activity. After approximately 22 minutes, it's 95 percent. Most software deals with large high-contrast targets and low clutter. This is adequate for many scenarios, however, it does not address smaller (6 to 12 pixel) targets with a low contrast in the presence of confusing objects and clutter.

The Solution

The Real Time Change Detector (RTCD) uses a smart threshold to deal with moving objects. It keeps track of the changes and generates a rolling average and peak of these changes on a cell by cell basis. It uses these data along with weighting factors to identify and eliminate the confusing objects. The remaining objects are targets. It provides an alarm and circling and magnifying the region of interest.

The Tools Used

• Any surveillance video camera
• Real Time Change Detector with Smart Threshold software
• Computer or dedicated processor or DSP (code not yet released)

The Difference it Made

In one example, prior to processing by the RTCD, an operator did not notice two individuals walking under trees. Using change detection only for the processing obscured the individuals due to clutter. Processing by the RTCD with smart threshold identifies only the couple. It provides an alarm, highlights the region of interest and magnifies the ROI to aid in target identification.