Charles River Analytics has been awarded a contract from the Disruptive Technologies Office for the Video Analysis and Content Extraction (VACE) program. With VACE, the government is seeking innovative, state-of-the-art technology for improving and automating video analysis. Charles River’s role in the program will be developing a Three-Dimensional Structure Estimation Engine (3SEE) in a contract that continues until 2009.
Camille Monnier, a scientist at Charles River Analytics, explained, “Our primary research goal is to develop video analysis technology that estimates the 3D structure of major scene elements in all forms of video and uses the resulting 3D model to support 3D mensuration.”
Monnier continued, “3SEE produces varying levels of 3D reconstruction from video by applying a combination of point solutions according to the detected operating conditions. Specific technologies of interest include Structure from Motion (SFM) and single-image (perspective or vanishing point) based approaches.”
Charles River’s novel approach to VACE with 3SEE aims to cover all five video modalities considered by the VACE program: broadcast news, meeting/conferences, surveillance, ground reconnaissance, and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).