See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/224399176

A dual-PTZ-camera system for visual tracking of a moving target in an open

area

Conference Paper · March 2009

Source: IEEE Xplore

CITATIONS READS

5 114

2 authors, including:

Hsien-Chou Liao
Chaoyang University of Technology
52 PUBLICATIONS   284 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE

All content following this page was uploaded by Hsien-Chou Liao on 22 April 2016.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 A dual-PTZ-camera system for visual tracking of a
moving target in an open area
Hsien-Chou Liao and Wei-Yi Chen
Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering, Chaoyang University of Technology
168 Jifong E. Rd., Wufong Township Taichung County, 41349, Taiwan (R.O.C.)
E-mail: hcliao@cyut.edu.tw
Abstract  An active camera, i.e., pan-tilt-zoom camera,
can monitor a large area and the detail of a target. Therefore, it
is popularly used in recent studies related to intelligent
surveillance systems. A novel dual–PTZ-camera surveillance
system called “Eagle-Eye” is proposed in this paper. The view of
the system is designed to imitate an eagle’s eye. That is, the
system can keep monitoring the whole area while focusing on
the detail of a target. Two tracking techniques, image processing
and feature matching, are used alternatively to finish a tracking
task. In the experimental results, the percentage of tracking
tasks finished successfully for various moving speeds is more
than 80 percent. It shows that Eagle-Eye is feasible for tracking
objects in an open area.
Keywords  visual surveillance, visual tracking,
pan-tilt-zoom camera, feature extraction.
1. Introduction
The evolution of computing power, image processing
techniques, and camera functionality causes visual
surveillance becoming an important application in the digital
life. The cost of an Internet-based Pan-Tilt-Zoom (PTZ)
camera with high optical zoom is low for general purpose
usage.
Many novel systems of visual surveillance proposed
methods for handling the cooperation of multiple cameras to
deal some specific situation. For example, when a moving
object is occluded in the real-time image of a camera, the
system can switch to another camera automatically. Besides,
the cooperation of a wide-angle camera and PTZ camera,
called dual-camera system, is proposed and developed [1-3].
A wide-angle camera can be used to monitor a large open
area, but it cannot be used to view the detailed image of a
moving object, such as face or license plate. Oppositely, a
PTZ camera can be used to get a close view of an object, but
its field-of-view (FOV) is small unless to make it zoom out.
Therefore, a dual camera can complement the disadvantages
of two types of cameras. Although a dual camera system
extends the function of a visual surveillance system, it still
has the following drawbacks. Firstly, the pan and tilt
operations of a PTZ camera enable its monitoring area is
several times than that of a wide-angle camera. The
functionality of a PTZ camera is not fully used in the
dual-camera system. Secondly, the cooperation of two types
of cameras relies on a calibration process. The adjustment of
camera‟s FOV causes the system must be re-calibrated again.
It is troublesome in the practical environment.
Therefore, a novel dual-PTZ-camera system is proposed
in this paper to extend the capability of camera‟s cooperation.
The design of the system mainly imitates the structure of
eagles‟ eye. Eagle-eye is designed not only to monitor a large
open area, but also to view and track a small quarry from the
high sky. In order to meet the above requirement, its outside
area is similar to a wide-angle camera, and the central area is
similar to PTZ camera with a high telephoto lens. Both views
are changed simultaneously as the rotation of the eye.
Therefore, when a suspicious object is found in the outside
area, the object can be identified quickly by using the central
area once the eagle rotates its eye to aim on it. Here, two
PTZ cameras are cooperated to provide the same
functionality. Such a system is useful for security personnel
to monitor a large open area effectively.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2
presents some related works. Section 3 presents the system
architecture and operation process. Section 4 presents the
experimental study. Section 5 gives the conclusion of our
research.
2. Related Works
An active camera, i.e., PTZ camera, is extended from the
traditional passive camera. It can be used not only to monitor
a wide surveillance area, but also to provide many new
control functions, e.g., moving object detection or
surveillance path setup. Previous studies related to active and
passive cameras can be classified into the following
categories:
1. The cooperation of dual or multiple passive cameras:
Numerous studies have proposed systems belong to this
category. For example, Z. Tao et al. presented a method
can indicate that various targets on different cameras,
then further fusion the information that extracted by
cameras and provide the tracking for more wider and
accuracy [4]. The advantage of this category that the
price of passive camera is cheap, but the disadvantages
include the deployment complicate, the monitor area
limited, and the terrible resolution of image.
2. The cooperation of passive and active cameras system:
In order to deal with the requirement of user that want to
track the target and get high quality image of target
continually, C. Micheloni et al. proposed a
communication network architecture of visual
surveillance to include passive and active cameras [5].
Furthermore, the system can also track multiple targets
simultaneously via a communication module. Although
the proposed architecture is able to monitor a wide area
 and capture image with high resolution, the calibration Surveillant
Dual PTZ Cameras
and parameter setting for individual cameras are
additional issues to be addressed.
3. The cooperation of dual or multiple active cameras
system: Since the price of active camera is decreasing
and it will become a common equipment of a
surveillance system. Therefore, the issues related to the
cooperation of multiple active cameras are also
addressed. For example, I. Everts et al. proposed a Image Capture & Graphical User
Camera Control Interface (GUI)
system to track a target simultaneously by several active
cameras installed from various view points [6]. Such a
system relies on some complex calibration method for
the cooperation of active cameras [7]. It is inconvenient Camera Object
on system deployment adopts the establishment of Synchronization Detection & Tracking

background image [8]. Eagle-Eye System

According to the above description, the proposed Figure 1. The Eagle-Eye system architecture
Eagle-Eye system belongs to the last category. It is designed
and implemented to extend the capability of active cameras.
Figure 2 shows the operation process of the system. The
process on the left-hand side represents the operation of wide
3. The Eagle-Eye System angle PTZ camera (WAPTZ). The process on the right-hand
side represents the operation of enlarge PTZ camera
The system architecture and operation process are (ENPTZ).
presented in the following sub-sections: Wide Angle PTZ Camera Enlarge PTZ Camera
(WAPTZ) (ENPTZ)

Synchronize with
3.1 System Architecture Select a target
WAPTZ
In order to design a real-time surveillance system that
Contour obtain Resizing image
possesses the features such as high quality resolution, widely
monitoring area, and easy deployment. Two active cameras
Temporal matching Difference
are installed on the same side and aimed at the same area.
One is assigned to a high zoom value, e.g., 8000, to imitate Binarization
Centralize the target
the telephoto view. The other is assigned to a low zoom value,
e.g. 4000. The architecture of the Eagle-Eye system is Median filter
presented in Figure 1. The "Image Capture and Camera
Control" module is used to manage the image capturing and Finding Object Get candidate area
control of the active cameras and communicate between the
"Camera Synchronization" and "GUI" (Graphical User Object not YES Fuzzy matching
found
Interface) modules. The "Object Detection and Tracking
NO
unit" is used to detect and track the target object selected by Target location (x, y)
determination
the surveillant. Its operation process is presented in detail
later. The "Camera Synchronization" module is responsible Exact Extract
Mark the target
to imitate the rotation of eye, i.e., the view is changed position features

simultaneously as the moving of the target object. Synchronize with

Boundarization
ENPTZ

3.2 Operation Process End of track

Most of the multi-camera surveillance system utilize the
2D-3D geometric model [7] for the calibration and
cooperation of cameras. In Eagle-Eye system, there is no
calibration procedure since two cameras are installed
side-by-side and parallel. The cooperation of two cameras is
based on the synchronization operation.
The pan/tilt operations of an active camera causes the
real-time image is changed dramatically. It is unable to use
the general background subtraction technique for foreground
object detection. Therefore, two detection methods are used
for moving object detection and tracking. The first method is
feature extraction and fuzzy match [9], and the second
method is based on the image processing technique.
Figure 2. The operation process of the Eagle-Eye system
The process is performed iteratively based on the
following two steps:
1. Initially, the tracking target is not selected yet. Therefore,
the pan/tilt angle of ENPTZ is synchronized with that of
WAPTZ.
2. When a target is selected by clicking the object in the
image of WAPTZ, the contour of the object is found and
the features are extracted according the method
presented in [9]. Then, WAPTZ is controlled to
centralize the object in the camera image. The pan and
tilt angles of WAPTZ are acquired and sent to ENPTZ.
 Then, the ENPTZ starts the tracking task of the object. the right-hand side is all the detected objects using image
The process is then divided into two sub-processes, processing procedure. And, the red rectangle is the target
image processing and fuzzy match. They are denoted by detected from a series of frames. Some parameters can also
orange and pink rectangles in Figure 2, respectively. The be adjusted via the track bars on the bottom. When the
system determines the target‟s location according to the checkbox, “Eagle-Eye Mode”, is clicked, the wide-angle and
results of two methods. When the target object can be telephoto views are merged together as shown in Figure 3(b).
detected precisely by using image processing technique, It is similar to the view of an eagle eye and useful for a
it is tracked according to its result. Oppositely, if the surveillant to track a target and keep monitoring objects
target object is occluded by other objects, its exact around the area.
location is determined by using fuzzy match method. Besides, the fuzzy match procedure is activated when
WAPTZ is synchronized with the ENPTZ in the tracking the target intersecting with the other objects, e.g. person or
process. The process is returned to Step 1 for waiting a tree. An example is shown in Figures 3(c) and (d). When two
new tracking task when the target is moved out of the objects are intersected, the size of the object detected using
FOV or the surveillant cancels the tracking function. image processing procedure is almost twice than the size in
the previous frame. Therefore, the area is set as the candidate
3.3 Feature Extraction and Fuzzy Match area for fuzzy match procedure and denoted by a blue
This part is modified from a fuzzy correlation of rectangle in Figure 3(c). After the fuzzy match of the target
color-histogram method proposed by H. Zhai et al. [9]. object and the candidate area, the most possible target area
Assume the image of target object is determined by the with the maximum similarity (Rh) is marked by a red
contour of a selected moving object, a candidate area is twice rectangle. The system is keep tracking the target area. When
of the target image. This part is used to find the location of the size of the object detected using image processing
the target image in the candidate image. It is performed procedure is close to the original size before the intersection,
according to the following steps: the fuzzy match procedure is paused. Then, the target image
1. Acquire an image with the same size of the target image is updated, and the target is tracking using image processing
from the candidate area systematically. procedure as shown in Figure 3(d).
2. Transform target and the image acquired in the above
step into grey scale and generate a 16 levels color
histogram.
3. Sort the 16 levels of two images and denote as hl (l=1 to
16) and hl’ (l‟=1 to 16).
4. Compute the similarity of two levels when l equals to l‟
based on the following membership function.
min hl , hl ' 
 S hl , hl '   (1)
maxhl , hl ' 
5. 2-cut defuzzification:  S hl , hl '  is set to one when it
is larger than 2. Otherwise, it is set to zero. That is, this
step is used to determine whether  S hl , hl ' is
 
included in the similarity computation. (a)
6. Similarity computation: the similarity Rh is computed
according to the Eq. (2). Hl Represents the weight of the
level l. Hl is set to one for uniform weight.
M
Rh   H  h , h ,
l S 2 l l' where H l   l min hl , hl '  (2)
l , l ' 1

7. Find the acquired image with the maximum Rh. Its

location is deemed as the location of the target image.
The value of 2-cut is set to 0.8 from the empirical

4. Experimental Study

A prototype system was implemented by using Visual

Studio 2005 to demonstrate the feasibility of Eagle-Eye
system. The screen shot is shown in Figure 3. In Figure 3(a), (b)
the images on the left-hand side and the center are
wide-angle view and telephoto view of two PTZ cameras.
Those images on the right-hand side are the results of fuzzy
match and moving object detection. The yellow rectangle on
 REFERENCES

[1] L. Marchesotti, L. Marcenaro, and C. Regazzoni, "Dual Camera

(c)
(d)
Figure 3. Screen shots of the prototype system (a) the main window (b)
eagle-eye mode (c) and (d) the fuzzy match procedure for the
intersection of two objects
An experiment was designed based on the prototype to
evaluate the feasibility of the proposed method. The tracking
tasks were executed 200 times. The target is chosen
randomly. The moving speed of the target is computed in
pixels for a 640480 image. A task is success if the target can
be kept in the FOV continuously in the period of walking
through the open area.
The experimental results are listed in Table 1. When the
moving speed is high, the success rate is high, too. The
average success rate is 82 percent. It shows that the proposed
method is feasible for tracking object on an open area.
System for Face Detection in Unconstrained Environments",
Proceedings of 2003 International Conference on Image Processing,
14-17 Sept., 2003, Vol. 1, pp. 681-684.
[2] R. Bodor, R. Morlok, and N. Papanikolopoulos, "Dual-Camera System
for Multi-Level Activity Recognition", Proceedings of 2004 IEEE/RSJ
International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, 28 Sept.
-2 Oct., Vol. 1, pp. 643- 648.
[3] C. Micheloni, E. Salvador, F. Bigaran, and G. L. Foresti, "An
Integrated Surveillance System for Outdoor Security", IEEE
Conference no Advanced Video and Signal Based Surveillance, 15-16
Sept., 2005, pp. 480-485.
[4] Z. Tao, M. Aggarwal, R. Kumar, and H. Sawhney, "Real-time wide
area multi-camera stereo tracking", IEEE Computer Society
Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, 20-25 June,
2005, Vol. 1, pp. 976-983.
[5] C. Micheloni, G. L. Foresti, and L. Snidaro, "A network of
co-operative cameras for visual surveillance", IEE Proceedings of
Vision, Image and Signal Processing, 8 April, 2005, Vol. 152, pp.
205-212.
[6] I. Everts, N. Sebe, and G. Jones, "Cooperative Object Tracking with
Multiple PTZ Cameras", Proceedings of the 14th International
Conference on Image Analysis and Processing, 10-14 Sept., 2007, pp.
323-330.
[7] I. H. Chen, and S. J. Wang, "An Efficient Approach for the Calibration
of Multiple PTZ Cameras", IEEE Transaction on Automation Science
and Engineering, April, 2007, Vol. 4, pp. 286-293.
[8] A. Bevilacqua, and P. Azzari, "High-Quality Real Time Motion
Detection Using PTZ Cameras", IEEE International Conference on
Video and Signal Based Surveillance (AVSS „06), Nov. 2006, pp.
23-28.
[9] H. Zhai, P. Chavel, Y. Wang, S. Zhang, Y. Liang,
"Weighted fuzzy correlation for similarity measure of
color-histograms", Optics Communications, 1 March, 2005, Vol. 247,
pp. 49-55.

Table 1. Tracking successful rate vs. moving speed

Speed (Pixel/Sec) Total Success Percentage
3-5 10 8 80 %
6 - 10 46 33 72 %
11 - 15 75 65 87 %
16 - 20 62 52 84 %
> 20 7 6 86 %
Total 200 164 82 %

5. Conclusion and Future Works

In this paper, a dual-PTZ-camera system is designed and

implemented to imitate the function of an eagle eye. The
cooperation of two PTZ cameras is simply based on tracking
function and a synchronization operation. The image
processing technique and fuzzy match method is used in the
tracking function to handle the background change caused by
the camera rotation. There is no calibration needed for the
system. It means that the system is easy to deploy.
In the future, the system will be deployed on a wearable
device and head mounted display (HMD) to enable the
surveillant having an artificial eagle-eye.

View publication stats