Forensics made easy.

In forensic analysis mode, VCAsys enables rapid, accurate post-event forensic search. By re-analysing the stored metadata against new rules, specific events can be rapidly retrieved from video archives or new object or zone statistics generated.

VCAsys extracts data about moving objects in real-time from the input video stream. This metadata is output in a open format which may be stored and manipulated as required by third-party applications. This stored metadata may be simply re-injected into the Behaviour Analysis module to generate new alerts or zone statistics based on a revised rule-set. Alternatively the metadata may be analysed by third-party software for entirely novel applications.

OVERVIEW

Metadata literally means "data about data" and in the field of Video Content Analysis it means the output of the VCA software. The Metadata stream describes the motion and properties of Objects in the video scene on a frame by frame basis together with Events, Counts and Other status and debug information.

METADATA STREAM TYPES

There is only one Metadata stream format but for licensing purposes some Objects in the Annotation Metadata stream are encrypted and can only be displayed using the VCA Drawing DLL, which includes a decryption routine.

CONFIGURATION

The Metadata does not contain any information about the Rules, Zones, or Counters, which are part of the Configuration that is set-up from the Host System via the HTTP API. So, by itself, the Metadata is not the ‘whole story' and the Configuration Data is needed at the same time to fully interpret the VCA output.

NVC EVENT SERVER

NVC/IPE products contain Event Server software for handling all the inputs and outputs of the encoder / camera systems.

The VCA sub-system is treated as just another input to the Event Server and the output API message generated will contain details of the VCA Event such as Event ID, Start time and Status. Also, for ease of integration, additional configuration and object information such as the Zone ID, Zone Name, Object Classifier name, Rule name and Object Bounding Box will be included in the API message.

The developer therefore has a choice of taking the full VCA event information from the Metadata + Configuration or the summary information from the Event server.