Locative Video Integration for Geospatial Accuracy
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Current surveillance systems lack the ability to seamlessly integrate video streams with geospatial information, relying on complex ortho-rectification processes and being limited to specific platforms and devices, which restricts their flexibility and scalability in providing real-time intelligence and analysis across multiple sources.
Innovation Solution
A system that utilizes locative video software and visualization tools to combine video frames with geospatial data by positioning a virtual camera within a virtual visualization space, aligning its view with a physical camera, and overlaying geospatial snapshots onto the video stream, enabling the integration of geospatial information without the need for ortho-rectification and supporting distributed networks.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If ortho-rectification is used to combine video and geospatial intelligence data, then geospatial accuracy is improved, but device complexity and computational requirements increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates a virtual copy of the camera within the geospatial environment instead of processing the actual video frames through complex ortho-rectification. The virtual camera replicates the physical camera's position, orientation, and field of view, allowing geospatial data to be rendered from the same perspective without computationally intensive image transformation.
Solution Approach 2:
Instead of transforming the video image to match geospatial coordinates (ortho-rectification), the patent inverts the approach by rendering geospatial data from the camera's viewpoint. The virtual camera generates geospatial snapshots that align with the video stream, reversing the traditional transformation direction and simplifying the computational process.
2Measurement precision
If ortho-rectification is used to determine geospatial coverage, then geospatial precision is improved, but the solution is limited to downward-looking video streams from airborne platforms
Solution Approach 1:
The virtual camera approach is universally applicable to any video source with known position and orientation data, regardless of viewing direction or platform type. Whether the camera is on a ground vehicle, building, drone, or satellite, the system can create an appropriate virtual camera representation and render corresponding geospatial data, making the solution platform-agnostic.
3Device complexity
If video and geospatial information are displayed independently, then system simplicity is maintained, but situation awareness and operator decision-making are reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges video frames with geospatial snapshots at the pixel level to create a unified combined video stream. This integration allows operators to view both real-time video and geospatial context simultaneously in a single display, eliminating the need to switch between separate views while maintaining intuitive visual comprehension.
4Loss of time
If geospatial data is retrieved and processed in real-time for each video frame, then information currency is improved, but processing time and computational load increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system pre-positions the virtual camera within the geospatial environment using the physical camera's position and orientation data. This preliminary setup allows for efficient rendering of geospatial snapshots that are synchronized with video frames, avoiding the need for complex real-time georeferencing calculations for each frame while maintaining current spatial accuracy.
Data Source
AI summary
An exemplary system and method are disclosed for providing a combined video stream with geospatial information. Embodiments use a visualization tool to synchronize information in a virtual camera with attributes, such as video frames, from a physical camera. Once the camera position information is supplied to the visualization tool, the visualization tool retrieves geospatial data, such as terrain features, man made features, and time sensitive event data, and transforms the camera position information into a coordinate system of the virtual camera. The visualization tool uses the coordinate system of the virtual camera to generate geospatial snapshots. Embodiments use locative video software to combine the video frames from the physical camera with the geospatial snapshots from the virtual camera to generate a combined video stream, which provides a single view of multiple types of data to enhance an operator's ability to conduct surveillance and analysis missions.