Target property maps for surveillance systems

1 . A video processing system comprising:

an up-stream video processing device to accept an input video sequence and output information on one or more targets in said input video sequence; and

a target property map builder, coupled to said up-stream video processing device to receive at least a portion of said output information and to build at least one target property map.

2 . The system according to claim 1 , wherein said up-stream video processing device comprises:

a detection device to receive said input video sequence;

a tracking device coupled to an output of said detection device; and

a classification device coupled to an output of said tracking device, an output of said classification device being coupled to an input of said target property map builder.

3 . The system according to claim 1 , further comprising:

an event detection device coupled to receive an output of said target property map builder and to output one or more detected events.

4 . The system according to claim 3 , further comprising:

an event specification interface coupled to said event detection device to provide one or more events of interest to said event detection device.

5 . The system according to claim 4 , wherein said event specification interface comprises a graphical user interface.

6 . The system according to claim 1 , wherein said target property map builder provides feedback to said up-stream video processing device.

7 . The system according to claim 1 , wherein said target property map builder comprises:

at least one buffer.

8 . A method of video processing, comprising:

processing an input video sequence to obtain target information; and

building at least one target property map based on said target information.

9 . The method according to claim 8 , wherein said processing an input video sequence comprises:

detecting at least one target;

tracking at least one target; and

classifying at least one target.

10 . The method according to claim 8 , wherein said building at least one target property map comprises:

for a given target, considering at least one instance of the target;

filtering said at least one instance of the target; and

determining if said at least one instance of the target is mature.

11 . The method according to claim 10 , wherein said building at least one target property map further comprises:

if at least one instance of the target is mature, updating at least one map model corresponding to at least one location where an instance of the target is mature.

12 . The method according to claim 11 , wherein said building at least one target property map further comprises:

determining if at least one model forming part of said at least one target property map is mature.

13 . The method according to claim 8 , further comprising:

detecting at least one event based on said at least one target property map.

14 . The method according to claim 13 , wherein said detecting at least one event comprises:

for a given target, comparing at least one property of the target with at least one property of said at least one target property map.

15 . The method according to claim 14 , wherein said comparing comprises:

using a user-defined comparison criterion.

16 . The method according to claim 13 , further comprising:

obtaining at least one user-defined criterion for event detection.

17 . A computer-readable medium containing instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform the method according to claim 8 .

18 . A video processing system comprising:

a computer system; and

the computer-readable medium according to claim 17 .

19 . A video surveillance system comprising:

at least one camera to generate an input video sequence; and

the video processing system according to claim 18.