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Semantic web technologies for video surveillance metadata

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Abstract

Video surveillance systems are growing in size and complexity. Such systems typically consist of integrated modules of different vendors to cope with the increasing demands on network and storage capacity, intelligent video analytics, picture quality, and enhanced visual interfaces. Within a surveillance system, relevant information (like technical details on the video sequences, or analysis results of the monitored environment) is described using metadata standards. However, different modules typically use different standards, resulting in metadata interoperability problems. In this paper, we introduce the application of Semantic Web Technologies to overcome such problems. We present a semantic, layered metadata model and integrate it within a video surveillance system. Besides dealing with the metadata interoperability problem, the advantages of using Semantic Web Technologies and the inherent rule support are shown. A practical use case scenario is presented to illustrate the benefits of our novel approach.

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Notes

  1. http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/rbf/CAVIAR/

  2. http://www.psialliance.org/index.html

  3. http://www.onvif.org/

  4. The CVML ontology can be found online at http://multimedialab.elis.ugent.be/users/chpoppe/ontologies/surveillance/CVML.owl.

  5. http://www.jena.sourceforge.net

  6. http://pellet.owldl.com

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Acknowledgements

The research activities that have been described in this paper were funded by Ghent University, the Interdisciplinary Institute for Broadband Technology (IBBT), the Institute for the Promotion of Innovation by Science and Technology in Flanders (IWT-Flanders), the Fund for Scientific Research-Flanders (FWO-Flanders), and the European Union.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electronics and Information Systems—Multimedia Lab, Ghent University—IBBT, Gaston Crommenlaan 8 Bus 201, 9050, Ledeberg-Ghent, Belgium

    Chris Poppe, Gaëtan Martens, Pieterjan De Potter & Rik Van de Walle

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  1. Chris Poppe
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  2. Gaëtan Martens
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  3. Pieterjan De Potter
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  4. Rik Van de Walle
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Correspondence to Chris Poppe.

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Poppe, C., Martens, G., De Potter, P. et al. Semantic web technologies for video surveillance metadata. Multimed Tools Appl 56, 439–467 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-010-0600-5

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