Researchers from the University of Hong Kong introduced the latest 3D surveillance system capable of advanced surveillance video analyses.

The new 3D surveillance system was presented at a media conference that was held on June 26, and  made possible by the collective efforts of researchers of the university's Department of Computer Science. Professor Yizhou Yu led the team and was financially supported by the government's Innovation and Technology Fund.

Like Us on Facebook

The US$5M-worth surveillance research project was Initiated in June 2012 and is expected to speed up investigations through a more detailed reenactment. which could help investigators get a more holistic view of the crime scene.

Reports state that this system can merge a large number of videos from different surveillance cameras into a single 3-dimensional reenactment of past events and allow further enhancement to efficiently analyze the scenario.

After identifying one or more suspects from the 'informative and easy-to-comprehend' 3D reenactment, the system then sifts through all available surveillance footages and screen out segments in which suspects are captured, says Professor Yu.

It then tracks the suspects based on their features such as skin color and texture, clothes and personal belongings and their body gestures.

Meanwhile, accuracy will be slightly lower-from 90 to 80 percent-if the location is crowded and there is only a few CCTV cameras taping it.

So far, the new system received positive feedback last month during a briefing for the government which was attended by the police, customs and the Airport Authority.

The research team still continues to improve some of the systems attributes including the length of time it takes to process an hour of CCTV footages which currently takes about 90 to 120 minutes.

Additional features to help identify a person such as body shape and posture are also being developed.

The trial version will be available in one to two years though funding of 'several million' Hong Kong dollars is still necessary to before it can be offered on the market.

TagsCCTV, surveillance, University of Hong Kong