ROC curves for performance evaluation of video sequences processing systems for surveillance applications

Performance evaluation of image processing intermediate results in video based surveillance systems is extremely important due to the variety of approaches to this task. An approach based on the use of receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curves in order to evaluate the performance of a vision complex system for surveillance purposes is presented. The ROC curves have already been used in other research fields such as in the comparison of edge detection algorithms or in the evaluation of artificial neural networks: in this case they are used in order to compare different parameters selections within a system for the localization of moving objects. The presented results show the possibility of using ROC curves as a means for evaluation and comparison of video based surveillance systems.