A televiewing system for multiple simultaneous customized perspectives and resolutions

Recent innovations in real-time machine vision, distributed computing, software architectures and high-speed communication are expanding the available technology for intelligent system development. These technologies allow the realization of intelligent systems that provide the capabilities for a user to experience events from remote locations in an interactive way. In this paper, we describe research aimed at the realization of a powerful televiewing system applied to the traffic incident detection and monitoring needs of today's highways. Sensor clusters utilizing both rectilinear and omni-directional cameras provide an interactive, real-time, multi-resolution televiewing interface to emergency response crews. Ultimately, this system will have a direct impact on reducing incident-related highway congestion by improving the quality of information to which emergency personnel have access.