New 360-degree video surveillance system shows perfectly detailed images

Washington, June 8 (ANI): Video surveillance cameras are indispensable to enforcement officers - canvassing a crowd for criminal activity, or trying to pick out a fleeing suspect who blends into a throng in the subway.

However, zoom in and the image is distorted and, officers lose sight of the remaining scene.

Now, a new video surveillance system - The Imaging System for Immersive Surveillance (or ISIS) takes new video camera and image-stitching technology and bolts it to a ceiling, mounts it on a roof, or fastens it to a truck-mounted telescoping mast.

The video is made from a series of individual cameras stitched into a single, live view- to give a perfectly detailed, edge-to-edge image.

"Coverage this sweeping, with detail this fine, requires a very high pixel count," says program manager Dr. John Fortune, of S and T's Infrastructure and Geophysical Division, "ISIS has a resolution capability of 100 megapixels."

That's as detailed as 50 full-HDTV movies playing at once, with optical detail to spare. You can zoom in closer without losing clarity. Other features include - a sacrosanct "exclusion zone," for which ISIS provides an alert the moment it's breached. Another lets the operator pick a target-a person, a package, or a pickup truck-and the detailed viewing window will tag it and follow it, automatically panning and tilting as needed.

Forensic investigators can pore over the most recent video, using pan, zoom, and tilt controls to reconstruct who did what and when. And separate investigative teams can feasibly study different regions of a crime scene simultaneously because the controls are virtual.

Eventually, the Department plans to develop a version of ISIS that will use infrared cameras to detect events that occur at night. (ANI)