METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR VIDEO COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS THEREOF

1 . A computer implemented method of performing video surveillance on a computer system, wherein the computer system comprises a video and a display with a graphical user interface, the graphical user interface including a source window to view play back of the video, the surveillance method comprising:

determining an area of interest of a frame of the video based upon a selection of the area of interest within the source window; and

generating a plurality of windows within the graphical user interface, each of the windows displaying the area of interest of the frame of the video at a point in time, wherein the graphical user interface includes controls to manipulate the playback of the video from a point in time relative to each displayed portion.

2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the step of generating includes the step of determining the point in time of at least one of the windows.

3 . The method of claim 2 , wherein the step of determining the point in time of at least one of the windows is based upon an input by a human operator.

4 . The method of claim 3 , wherein the windows generated by the generating step are representative of portions of the video displaced from one another by a pre-determined period of time.

5 . The method of claim 4 , wherein the pre-determined period of time is defined by a human operator.

6 . The method of claim 2 , wherein the step of determining the point in time of at least one of the windows is based upon a detection of movement in the video.

7 . The method of claim 2 , wherein the step of determining the point in time of at least one of the windows is based upon a detection of an event in the video.

8 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the selection of an area of interest is performed by drawing a graphical box around the area of interest on the source window.

9 . The method of claim 1 , wherein determining an area of interest is performed based upon a detection of movement in an area of the video.

10 . The method of claim 1 wherein determining an area of interest is performed based upon a detection of an event in an area of the video.

11 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the controls include zoom controls.

12 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the windows are thumbnail sized.

13 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the size of each window can be altered.

14 . A computer implemented method of performing video surveillance on a computer system, wherein the computer system comprises a video and a display with a graphical user interface, the graphical user interface comprising a map designating a location of at least one monitoring sensor and a source window to view play back of a video, the surveillance method comprising:

displaying a video being detected by the at least one monitoring sensor;

displaying a section of the map representing the location of the at least one monitoring sensor detecting the video.

15 . The method of claim 14 , wherein the video displayed is displaced based upon an instruction received through a network.

16 . The method of claim 14 , wherein the instruction is issued by a human operator.

17 .- 21 . (canceled)

22 . An improved computer implemented graphical user interface for monitoring video surveillance comprising:

a viewing region for viewing a video;

a video navigation region for manipulating the viewing of the video;

a thumbnail region which dynamically displays select frames of the video based on a pre-defined criteria each frame having a navigation region for viewing of the video beginning with the displayed frame;

wherein selecting individual frames of the video populates the viewing region with said individual frame and plays the video beginning with the selected frame.

23 . An improved graphical user interface of claim 22 further comprising an alert notification region for alerting a user of the graphical user interface to a pre-defined occurrence in the video.