Patent ID: 8126276

Claim:
A business method for providing advice to a remote location, the method comprising the steps of: inputting one or more video streams at a field location for transmission of image data, obtained from a sensor, to an office location, the image data including a pictorial representation of at least one object in an image viewed by the sensor; selecting, at an office location, a selected compression process out of a set of different compression processes for compressing video of said one or more video streams, the selecting being based on a task, each of said different compression processes serving to modify a video representation of said at least one object by implementation of a symbolic representation of the object, wherein the symbolic representation of the object has less data points to be transmitted than the number of data points in the pictorial representation of the object, compressing one or more of the video streams at the field location using the selected compression process to obtain a compressed video; transmitting the compressed video from the field location to the office location, wherein the office location uses the compressed video to provide advice to the field location for performing the task; transmitting, to the field location, an identification of at least one object related to the task; automatically detecting and tracking said at least one object based on attributes of the object, wherein during said tracking, said selecting step is repeated for use of different compression processes to enable transmission of images of reduced detail among images of higher resolution in said transmitting of the compressed video; transmitting attributes of said at least one object to the office location; and controlling manipulation of the object by a field agent at the field location to accomplish the task, wherein the controlling is accomplished remotely with the aid of communication from the office location to the field location; wherein, in said selecting of the compression process, a viewer of images received at the office location from the field location adjusts the compressions of images from said sensor to be transmitted in said transmitting of the compressed video to provide for reduced compression wherein a relatively high resolution image is required and to provide for increased compression wherein a relatively low resolution image is acceptable, thereby enabling said transmitting of the compressed video to provide more high resolution imaging over a communication link of reduced bandwidth.