Video surveillance system employing video primitives

A method of video surveillance, comprising:

• receiving, by a computer system, a video comprising video images from a video sensor,
• the computer system performing the steps of:
• analyzing the video to detect stationary objects in the video;
• analyzing the video to detect people in the video;
• upon detecting a first stationary object in the video, defining a zone as a portion of the video around the first stationary object, defining the zone being responsive to a location of the first stationary object, the zone being defined to be larger than an outer boundary of the first stationary object and smaller than a field of view of the video, a size of the zone allowing detection of multiple non-overlapping objects;
• tracking a duration that the first stationary object remains stationary;
• and
• issuing an alert in response to determining that the duration of time the first stationary object has remained stationary exceeds a threshold while no person of interest detected in the video has been inside the zone.

A method of video surveillance, comprising:

• receiving, by a computer system, a video comprising video images from a video sensor,
• the computer system performing the steps of:
• analyzing the video to detect stationary objects in the video;
• analyzing the video to detect people in the video;
• upon detecting a first stationary object in the video, defining a zone as a portion of the video around the first stationary object, defining the zone being responsive to a location of the first stationary object, the zone being defined to be larger than an outer boundary of the first stationary object and smaller than a field of view of the video, a size of the zone allowing detection of multiple non-overlapping objects;
• tracking a duration that the first stationary object remains stationary;
• issuing an alert in response to the determining that the duration of time the first stationary object has remained stationary exceeds a threshold while at least one of the following occurs:
• no person of interest detected in the video has been detected as being in the zone, and
• no person of interest detected in the video has been detected as being in the zone longer than a first period of time.

A method of video surveillance, comprising:

• receiving, by a computer system, a video comprising video images from a video sensor,
• the computer system performing the steps of:
• analyzing the video to detect stationary objects in the video;
• analyzing the video to detect people in the video;
• upon detecting a first stationary object in the video, defining a zone as a portion of the video around the first stationary object, defining the zone being responsive to a location of the first stationary object, the zone being defined to be larger than an outer boundary of the first stationary object and smaller than a field of view of the video, a size of the zone allowing detection of multiple non-overlapping objects;
• tracking a duration that the first stationary object remains stationary;
• issuing an alert in response to determining that the duration of time the first stationary object has remained stationary exceeds a threshold while no person of interest detected in the video has been inside the zone;
• and
• determining a security threat level,
• wherein the size of the zone is responsive to the determined security threat level.

A method of video surveillance, comprising:

• receiving, by a computer system, a video comprising video images from a video sensor,
• the computer system performing the steps of:
• analyzing the video to detect stationary objects in the video;
• analyzing the video to detect people in the video;
• upon detecting a first stationary object in the video, defining a zone as a portion of the video around the first stationary object, defining the zone being responsive to a location of the first stationary object, the zone being defined to be larger than an outer boundary of the first stationary object and smaller than a field of view of the video, a size of the zone allowing detection of multiple non-overlapping objects;
• tracking a duration that the first stationary object remains stationary;
• determining an occurrence of an external event;
• and
• issuing an alert in response to determining that the duration of time the first stationary object has remained stationary exceeds a threshold while no person of interest detected in the video has been inside the zone and the occurrence of the external event,
• wherein the size of the zone is responsive to detection of other stationary objects prior to the detecting of the first stationary object.

A method of video surveillance, comprising:

• receiving, by a computer system, a video comprising video images from a video sensor,
• the computer system performing the steps of:
• analyzing the video to detect stationary objects in the video;
• analyzing the video to detect people in the video;
• upon detecting a first stationary object in the video, defining a zone as a portion of the video around the first stationary object, defining the zone being responsive to a location of the first stationary object, the zone being defined to be larger than an outer boundary of the first stationary object and smaller than a field of view of the video, a size of the zone allowing detection of multiple non-overlapping objects;
• tracking a duration that the first stationary object remains stationary;
• determining an occurrence of an external event;
• issuing an alert in response to the determining of the occurrence of the external event and determining that the duration of time the first stationary object has remained stationary exceeds a threshold while, during a first period of time, a person of interest detected in the video has been detected as being in the zone only for part of the first period of time;
• and
• wherein the size of the zone is determined dynamically and is responsive to a crowd density.