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Video surveillance or monitoring is an important ingredient of modern life. Research conducted by the 2017Centre for Information, Intelligence and Security Systems` (CIISS), into improving the reliability of automated detection of visual entities in videos, has made an impact on public services and on practitioners (increased speed and quality, lower labour cost — Beneficiaries: U.K. Police; police investigators) and their health (mitigation of potential physical or psychological harm — Beneficiaries: police investigators), on society (reduction of a factor associated with crime rates and legal costs — Beneficiaries: the public; tax-payers), and on business (creation of a spin-out company - Adaptive Video Analytics Technologies Ltd — Beneficiaries: UK; and influence on management decisions about technology choices — Beneficiaries: Serco Group plc (HMP Dovegate)).
Research at Kingston University into methods for tracking sports participants in an arena have been translated into a BAFTA-award-winning system deployed by Channel 4 at the London Paralympics: a "multi-platform Optical Tracking solution for Wheelchair Rugby & Basketball, capable of detecting live impact speeds"
This system was deployed at the London O2 Arena and the Olympic Basketball arena, to provide real-time analysis of player speeds, cumulative distances, impact magnitudes, and other quantitative statistics. There are plans to extend and improve this technology for subsequent events.
This system had economic benefits for the commercial partner, DeltaTre Ltd, and social benefits in contributing to Channel 4's positive portrayal of disabled athletes.
The explosive growth in the number of CCTV cameras has meant that analysing the volume of data produced has become almost unmanageable. Dublin based start-up Kinesense Ltd was incorporated in 2009 by Dr Mark Sugrue, who had carried out his PhD in Video Analytics at Royal Holloway. New methods to detect motion, track objects and classify behaviour in CCTV now enable the efficient scanning of video for important events. Kinesense Ltd has developed a range of forensic video analysis tools, which reduce the time required to search and analyse video footage by up to 95%. It has attracted investment funding of over €820,000, employs 7 full time staff and has made sales to police forces and security agencies in over 17 countries. Kinesense products benefit law enforcement professionals and organisations by providing more efficient surveillance and detection of criminal activity, allowing better use of investigator time, reducing the length of criminal investigations and increasing their success rate. The general public worldwide benefits from increased crime detection and the consequent prevention and reduction of criminal activity.
Research at the University of Cambridge Department of Engineering on computer vision tracking led to the creation of Extra Reality Limited in 2010, which was subsequently acquired by a new company called Zappar Limited in May 2011. Zappar employs 17 staff and had revenue of GBP612k in the financial year 2012/13, an increase of 35% on the previous year.
Over 50 different brands have used Zappar's augmented reality application across more than 300 offerings in over 17 countries to deliver entertainment-based marketing interactions from 2011 to 2013. [text removed for publication] Examples of partners include Disney, Warner Brothers and Marvel. Zappar has changed attitudes in the media sector by showing that "augmented reality is finally ready for prime time" (President, Creative Strategies Inc, Time Online, 2012).
A new multi-purpose computer vision system to identify sub-standard food products has been created. The research developed a user-trainable software technology with a range of possible applications, thus overcoming the specificity and other limitations such as the high set-up cost of existing visual inspection systems. This research is achieving impact in several areas within the food industry, including quality analysis of fresh produce, food processing and food packaging. The technology is currently being trialled at the leading post-harvest applied research facility for agricultural storage in the UK, and is also being licensed to a world-leading supplier of food packaging machines and equipment for inclusion in a new product range under development. The longer-term impacts include safer food, reduced food waste, more efficient food production, and better use of natural resources (e.g. reduced use of water, pesticides and other inputs), through early detection of potentially harmful flaws in production and packaging.
This Keele University research into advanced signal processing and classification methods has led to novel algorithms capable of isolating subtle patterns in complex data. This has been applied in two highly significant application areas: first to the problem of image source identification and second to the problem of unobtrusive but highly secure authentication methods. In the first case this has enabled images captured by mobile phone cameras to be reliably and evidentially linked to source devices. This has huge applicability to those fighting terrorism, paedophile rings and civil unrest by extending detection capabilities to mobile phones in an era in which they are rapidly replacing dedicated cameras. It helps to prove, for example, that a photograph entered as evidence was captured by a specific mobile phone. As most phones can be tied to their user or owner this is extremely important to the successful detection and prosecution of offenders.
In the second case it has enabled criminal record checks to be carried out securely online where previous paper-based systems were both too slow for purpose (taking weeks or months) and inherently insecure, leaving key posts unfilled in the health care industries and education sector; so benefitting the public by solving a problem that was having a negative impact on the running of these public services.
The body of research relating to perception and interpretation of medical images has generated a range of impacts on the practice and training of radiologists and reporting radiographers, with resultant benefits for patients. Engagement with the research findings has raised awareness in clinical practitioners of the implicit strategies they use during medical image interpretation and in particular the type and frequency of errors, including the prevalence of decision-making mistakes over issues of pathology perception. Practitioners have benefited through considering their individual strategies, leading to enhanced decision making processes and reducing error rates in interpretation of 2D and 3D images.
The impact has been achieved through engagement with the sector through relevant professional bodies, practitioner orientated publications and direct involvement of the research team in training and development activities for practitioners.
The impact of the research on practitioner diagnostic strategies is applicable across all areas of radiology and diagnostic radiography, but is also being explicitly pursued to determine training methods and assessment when radiologists view 3D Computed Tomography Colonography data for bowel cancer.
Music teachers, physiotherapists, museum curators and other practitioners have used the results of our research to improve their practice, with consequent benefits to individuals. For example, a violin teacher used our MusicJacket haptic guidance system to permanently improve pupil violin bowing technique. A neuroscience team made use of our Haptic Bracelet system in a novel form of gait rehabilitation with a patient recovering from a hemiparetic stroke, who reported improved posture and movement. Through public participation in events featuring our Haptic Lotus, such as theatre performances for blind and sighted people, as well as our engagement in schools and at festivals, we have stimulated public interest in technologically mediated approaches to issues of health, the arts and accessibility. This has led to informed public discourse through reports in national newspapers, magazines and the BBC.
In the late 1990s, a significant barrier to the adoption of virtual reality software was the expense of manually creating models of real-world scenes. To address this, between 1998 and 2004, the ICARUS software system was developed, which enabled the creation of structured, 3D geometric models from a sequence of images or video. The system also pioneered improved methods of camera tracking. ICARUS was subsequently licensed and developed commercially, and became the foundation for video and film post-production products that are used worldwide in the film (e.g. Universal Pictures, Warner Bros, Paramount Pictures) and television (e.g. BBC) industries, underpinning a company with an annual turnover in excess of £1m.
Research undertaken at UEA developed revolutionary algorithms for making pictures look better. These algorithms were subsequently engineered into prize winning desktop and embedded applications, resulting in the creation of the spinout company, Imsense Ltd., in 2006.
In July 2010, Imsense Ltd. was acquired by [text removed for publication] and the Imsense technology has now been incorporated into [text removed for publication] product pipeline.