Active Multicamera Networks: From Rendering to Surveillance

Active multicamera networks have a large and growing application base. On one end of the spectrum, active camera networks are being used to enhance the rendering or modeling of a single scene. Here, the many simultaneous views can be used to render a synthetic real time view even in a dynamically changing environment. The technical challenges include depth estimation within the scene, image correlation between multiple camera views, and manipulating the camera nodes in order to improve the rendered image. Active multicamera networks are also being used to enhance surveillance applications for which a large area needs to be monitored. In these systems, a primary focus is tracking objects both within a single video feed as well as throughout a collection of video feeds. Active components are used to monitor larger areas and provide more continuous coverage of moving targets. Regardless of the application, real time processing constraints and bandwidth limitations constitute a significant problem with large networked camera systems.