Patent ID: 7124427
Filing Date: 2006-10-17
Classification: G08B,H04N

Abstract:
1. A method of viewing image data from a plurality of cameras comprising: at said cameras, capturing data sets representing images; at said cameras, periodically transmitting said data sets to a plurality of camera coordinators, a plurality of said camera coordinators each receiving data sets from multiple cameras; at said camera coordinators, determining whether one or more of said data sets is of interest; transmitting data sets of interest from said camera coordinators over a network to an image server, said image server not local to one or more of said cameras; and providing said data sets from said image server for viewing by a user. and further wherein: said coordinators include an incident and history database from which their connected cameras can playback stored incidents; said coordinators can connect multiple incidents, triggered at multiple cameras, into an incident sequence; said coordinators have positional and view information about each camera and information about overlapping regions of cameras; said coordinators perform time-stamping for data sets and/or incidents; providing a management interface allowing a user to perform various management functions, including setting time parameters for whether incidents from particular cameras will be of interest, establishing other rules definitions; specifying alerts regarding cameras that have not reported; installing new software and other maintenance functions; said coordinators performing advanced image processing tasks including image recognition or tracking a person or object identified in an image or determining that an object is coming toward or moving away from one or more of its connected cameras.