Real-time geo-registered steerable video generation

Abstract

In this paper we present a new approach to the real-time generation and dissemination of steerable video chips from large volume motion imagery streams. Traditional large frame motion imagery streaming and dissemination systems employ JPEG 2000 (J2K) compression and associated JPEG 2000 Interactive Protocol (JPIP) streaming to encode and deliver images over varying bandwidth communication channels. While J2K and JPIP technologies are suitable for many large frame motion imagery applications, they often struggle to satisfy the needs of certain low power, low bandwidth users. The J2K format does not currently support inter-frame compression and, therefore, cannot target the lowest bandwidth motion imagery users. Additionally, J2K decompression and JPIP processing both consume more computational resources than low-end client systems often have available. This is especially true for handheld and thin-client devices. We address these issues by integrating region-of-interest J2K compression and JPIP streaming with MPEG-2 and H.264 video compression technology, taking advantage of the ubiquitous hardware acceleration and client ingest support for these full motion video product formats. The proposed architecture maintains all the benefits of incorporating a J2K archival format, while also boasting the ability to disseminate J2K regions-of-interest and low resolution overviews to an even greater number of simultaneous clients. We illustrate a real-time integration and implementation of these technologies and show how they can be used to enable interactive and automated tracking and dissemination of multiple moving objects from wide area persistent surveillance motion imagery.