Coverage quality and smoothness criteria for online view selection in a multi-camera network

Abstract

The problem of online selection of monocular view sequences for an arbitrary task in a calibrated multicamera network is investigated. An objective function for the quality of a view sequence is derived from a novel task-oriented, model-based instantaneous coverage quality criterion and a criterion of the smoothness of view transitions over time. The former is quantified by a priori information about the camera system, environment, and task generally available in the target application class. The latter is derived from qualitative definitions of undesirable transition effects. A scalable online algorithm with robust suboptimal performance is presented based on this objective function. Experimental results demonstrate the performance of the method-and therefore the criteria-as well as its robustness to several identified sources of nonsmoothness. © 2014 ACM 1550-4859/2014/01-ART31 15.00.