Modeling Multicamera Coverage for Placement Optimization

Modeling camera coverage is essential in many visual sensor applications. Particularly in visual surveillance, planning the coverage modeling is critical to estimate the coverage and to design the sensor deployment. Given the environment representation, the coverage model produces the sensor coverage based on the device specifications; however, analyzing the visibility in an arbitrary scene is a challenging part. This letter proposes a preliminary setup based on imaging techniques to assist in solving the camera placement problem. The proposed setup computes the camera coverage in a two-dimensional digitized floor-plan. Additionally, a pixelwise line drawing routine analyzes the ray's visibility from the viewpoint to the width of the field of view. Three commercial surveillance cameras are modeled and the obtained result forms the necessary coverage table for subsequent optimization tasks. Finally, the placement based on the proposed modeling setup is carried out and the result is evaluated against benchmark coverage modeling methods.