Patent ID: 8004563

Claim:
Method for performing event detection and object tracking in an image stream, wherein an event is defined as the occurrence of a type of activity in field which requires some type of action in response thereto, said method comprising: a) installing in the field, an image acquisition device for acquiring an image stream and comprising a local programmable processor for converting the acquired image stream, consisting of one or more images, to a digital format, and a local encoder, preprogrammed to operate with an image processing server via a data network on the basis of distribution of image processing algorithms between the local encoder and the server, said local encoder being operable to apply low-level feature extraction to the digital format of said image stream, and upon identifying that a number and type of features in the image stream exceed corresponding threshold, selectively generating, from said image stream, a feature stream including parameters related to attributes of areas in said image stream, for transmitting said feature stream via the data network to the image processing server; and b) connecting said image acquisition device to the data network through a corresponding data communication channel, to enable the operation of the encoder by the image processing server and transmission of the feature stream from the image acquisition device to the image processing server, thereby actuating high-level processing applications at the image processing server applied to the feature stream to detect the event and obtain an indication about the detected event; and c) transmitting the indications from the image processing server to an operator.