VICTORIA - Video analysis for Investigation of Criminal and Terrorist Activities

Beschreibung

Video recordings have become a major resource for legal investigations. Since no mature video investigation tools are available and trusted by LEAs, investigators still need to carry out the analysis of videos almost exclusively manually. Current practices are too resource intensive to handle the yet huge and steadily increasing volume of videos that need to be analysed after crimes and terrorist acts. The consequence is that LEAs cannot analyse all available videos because of the huge effort needed, and the extraction of first clues from videos after a terrorist attack takes more time.br VICTORIA will address this need and deliver a Video Analysis Platform (VAP) that will accelerate video analysis tasks by a factor of 15 to 100 (depending on the use case), while providing very reliable results. br To achieve this, VICTORIA will 1) develop a set of TRL-6 video analytics selected for their relevance in video investigation related to crimes and terrorist acts, 2) increase significantly the usability of delivered tools by involving LEAs directly in all stages of the development process, from specifications, over assessment of several VAP prototype versions, up to field trials in LEA operational conditions, 3) create an ecosystem around an open VAP concept, that will facilitate sustainable innovation and market growth for video investigation products, 4) train LEA investigators in the use of the VAP, 5) ensure that VICTORIA activities and results meet EU Legal-Ethical-Privacy rules. br The VAP will have a scalable architecture based on big data technologies, feature new user interface paradigms allowing complex semantic investigation queries and 4D crime scene reconstruction, be adaptable to specific user needs, and be future proof thanks to an open analytics plug-in feature, based on standardized interfaces and open to third party suppliers. br The consortium includes 4 LEAs, 6 renowned research groups, 2 SMEs and 2 industrial companies, world-leaders in security markets.

Institutionen
  • AG Keim (Data Analysis and Visualization)
Publikationen
    Kraus, Matthias; Pollok, Thomas; Miller, Matthias; Kilian, Timon; Moritz, Tobias; Schweitzer, Daniel; Beyerer, Jürgen; Keim, Daniel A.; Qu, Chengchao; Jentner, Wolfgang (2020): Toward Mass Video Data Analysis : Interactive and Immersive 4D Scene Reconstruction Sensors. MDPI. 2020, 20(18), pp. 5426. eISSN 1424-8220. Available under: doi: 10.3390/s20185426

Toward Mass Video Data Analysis : Interactive and Immersive 4D Scene Reconstruction

×

The technical progress in the last decades makes photo and video recording devices omnipresent. This change has a significant impact, among others, on police work. It is no longer unusual that a myriad of digital data accumulates after a criminal act, which must be reviewed by criminal investigators to collect evidence or solve the crime. This paper presents the VICTORIA Interactive 4D Scene Reconstruction and Analysis Framework ("ISRA-4D" 1.0), an approach for the visual consolidation of heterogeneous video and image data in a 3D reconstruction of the corresponding environment. First, by reconstructing the environment in which the materials were created, a shared spatial context of all available materials is established. Second, all footage is spatially and temporally registered within this 3D reconstruction. Third, a visualization of the hereby created 4D reconstruction (3D scene + time) is provided, which can be analyzed interactively. Additional information on video and image content is also extracted and displayed and can be analyzed with supporting visualizations. The presented approach facilitates the process of filtering, annotating, analyzing, and getting an overview of large amounts of multimedia material. The framework is evaluated using four case studies which demonstrate its broad applicability. Furthermore, the framework allows the user to immerse themselves in the analysis by entering the scenario in virtual reality. This feature is qualitatively evaluated by means of interviews of criminal investigators and outlines potential benefits such as improved spatial understanding and the initiation of new fields of application.

Forschungszusammenhang (Projekte)

    Jentner, Wolfgang; Kraus, Matthias; Weiler, Niklas; Kilian, Timon; Keim, Daniel A. (2018): Visual Analytics System for Semi-automatic 4D Crime Scene Reconstruction 4th International Symposium on Big Data Visual and Immersive Analytics. 2018

Visual Analytics System for Semi-automatic 4D Crime Scene Reconstruction

×

During criminal investigations, every second saved can be valuable to catch a suspect or to prevent further damage. However, sometimes the amount of evidence that needs to be investigated is so large, that it can not be processed fast enough. Especially after incidents in public, the law enforcement agencies receive a lot of video and image material from persons and surveillance cameras. Currently, all these videos are viewed manually and annotated by criminal investigators. The goal of our tool is to make this process faster by allowing the investigators to watch a combination of several videos at the same time and giving them a common spatial and temporal reference.

Forschungszusammenhang (Projekte)

Mittelgeber
Name Finanzierungstyp Kategorie Kennziffer
Europäische Union Drittmittel Forschungsförderprogramm 592/17
Weitere Informationen
Laufzeit: 01.05.2017 – 30.04.2020