Patent ID: 8311277

Claim:
A method for generating a synopsis video from a substantially endless source video stream as generated by a video surveillance camera, the method comprising: receiving in real time object-based descriptions of at least three different source objects in said source video stream, each source object being a connected subset of image points from at least three different frames of the source video stream; continuously maintaining a queue of said received object-based descriptions including for each respective source object its duration and location; selecting a subset of at least three source objects from said queue based on given criteria, and sampling from each selected source object one or more synopsis objects by temporal sampling; determining for each synopsis object a respective display time for starting its display in the synopsis video; and generating the synopsis video by displaying selected synopsis objects or objects derived therefrom each at its respective predetermined display time; such that at least three points, each derived from different respective times in the source video stream, are displayed simultaneously in the synopsis video and at least two points, both derived from the same time, are displayed at different times in the synopsis video.