Using Stationary-Dynamic Camera Assemblies for Wide-area Video Surveillance and Selective Attention

In this paper, we present a prototype video surveillance system that uses stationary-dynamic (or master-slave) camera assemblies to achieve wide-area surveillance and selective focus-of-attention. We address two critical issues in deploying such camera assemblies in real-world applications: off-line camera calibration and on-line selective focus-ofattention. Our contributions over existing techniques are twofold: (1) in terms of camera calibration, our technique calibrates all degrees-of-freedom (DOFs) of both stationary and dynamic cameras, using a closed-form solution that is both efficient and accurate, and (2) in terms of selective focus-of-attention, our technique correctly handles dynamic changes in the scene and varying object depths. This is a significant improvement over existing techniques that use an expensive and non-adaptable table-look-up process.