[plug] open source video (burglar) surveillance

[Jay Turner]

Maybe check out X10 http://www.x10.com/

This is more to do with hardware, but it may prove easier for you to get
something 'out of the box'.
They seem to have a number of cool products.

Jay


> -----Original Message-----
> From: plug-admin at plug.linux.org.au
> [mailto:plug-admin at plug.linux.org.au]On Behalf Of Denis Brown
> Sent: Wednesday, 24 September 2003 10:49 PM
> To: plug at plug.linux.org.au
> Subject: [plug] open source video (burglar) surveillance
>
>
> Dear PLUG list members,
>
> I'm wondering if anyone has investigated or used open source software for
> the purposes of video surveillance for theft.   The context is my son's
> preschool where several pilferings have occurred.  I'm musing about the
> possibility of using (something like) the Wizard mini PC, the USB ports
> interfacing a video camera or two and the processing being done on a
> frame-difference basis mitigated by time of day, since we'd be interested
> in out-of-hours activities, region of interest and by the change magnitude
> - to eliminate false triggerings by dogs, cats, birds, ....
>
> The school is considering getting broadband so that would make keeping an
> eye on things (no pun!) a bit easier.  This should be a modern spin on
> something we (industry) used to use many years ago in the slow-scan TV
> line.   A frame capture device would compare successive frames of video
> and, in the presence of a significant change in a defined
> region-of-interest, would raise an alarm.   It was pretty crude by today's
> standards but it did the job :-)
>
> I've just done a bit of Googling and had a hunt on Sourceforge and
> Freshmeat without too much in the way of direct hits.  There are several
> commercial approaches, including a turn-key solution from iomojo, several
> offerings from Axis (manufacturer of video and other servers), etc.   I
> don't doubt there is something out there but neither do i fancy ruffling
> through Mr Google's nearly 8000 hits on "surveillance, video, linux, open
> source" and so on keywords.   Freshmeat turned up net-cam but documenttion
> is sparse and it seems to talk of Axis-2000-something cameras, probably
> related to the other Axis reference.
>
> In summary: one or two (or more?) webcams connected (USB?) to some cheap
> Linux-based hardware.  Within a defined time of day, and region of
> interest in the camera(s) field(s) of view, a snapshot of the DIFFERENCES
> is taken.   If the quantity of different pixels is sufficient, this
> information is written to storage, along with the next to-be-decided (5,
> 10??)  seconds of video.   A flag is set, ready for interrogation at some
> future time.  A remote PC could then poll the surveillance unit from time
> to time and retrieve any captured "footage" for analysis / action.
>
> I suppose that one would have to be lucky to capture a useful image of the
> villain (focus issues, movement artifact, etc) but it might be better than
> nothing.  There might also be interesting legal issues about admissible
> evidence, privacy, ...   Urk!!   What say you all?
>
> Cheers and TIA,
> Denis
>
> PS.   While riffling through likely web sites I came across this reference
> http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/rja14/
> which relates to a Cambridge Professor's site (Ross Anderson) talking
> about the European Union's proposed(?) intellectual property laws.
>
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> plug at plug.linux.org.au
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>
>


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