In the context of visual surveillance one of the most important problem is the observation of human activity. This problem is greatly simplified when metric information can be computed. The goal of this project is to development and test new algorithms to determine metric information automatically by observing the scene.
A system to find the metric information by tracking a moving person on a ground has been developed. This algorithm consists in a method for calibration of two cameras based on features of a moving person in their common field of view. Only the image of foot and head locations are used. In fact these points and their geometric relationship between cameras give enough information to find their relative position and orientation and the internal parameters of each camera, the focal length and the principal point. In particular the proposed method works under the assumption that the scene needs to be modeled well with a dominant ground plane and the person is considered as a vertical segment of constant height.
Demo Video:
Related Publication:
Chen, T., A. Del Bimbo, F. Pernici, and G. Serra, “Accurate self-calibration of two cameras by observations of a moving person on a ground plane“, Proc. of IEEE International Conference on Advanced Video and Signal based Surveillance (AVSS), London, United Kingdom, September, 2007.