Dear Jack, what we have put together in the last two month is a prototypical technology stack for an automated camera control system in a lecture room. For this sprint we have a fairly narrow (though still challenging) set of aims we want achieve, namely to provide a stable tracking of the lecturer throughout the whole presentation. This is what we will mainly test and tune the system against in the next semester. However, there is no doubt that more complex camera operating strategies will be needed in practice. From the beginning LectureSight was developed bearing this in mind. The part of the system that controls the PTZ-camera was split into two separate modules for this reason: The first module, the so called 'camera steering worker', cares about moving the camera, while the second module decides about the targets for the camera movement based on data provided by the scene analysis. The actual strategy this 'virtual director' uses is defined via a JavaScript API. The idea is to provide maximum flexibility when it comes to customizing LectureSight for an individual class room. Looking at the scenario at TAU you described I can tell you that here in Osnabrueck we will test the system next semester in a course in which the lecturer makes heavy use of the blackboards. So, beyond optimization of the tracking, we will have the chance to play with different camera operating strategies in a scenario similar to yours.
Cheers, Benjamin On 08/30/2012 10:41 AM, Jack Barokas wrote:
Dear Olaf, This project is very interesting for us since most of the lecture recordings in TAU are made by students sitting behind the camera and tracing the lecturer. Though the stuff cost is not so high here we have quite a problem finding students to keep on working at least for a whole semester long:(. The most difficult problem in lecturer tracing system, in my opinion, is not the processes of tracing the lecturer or identify him from others crossing the camera frame but to make the intelligent decision whether to keep on tracking the lecturer while he moves away after writing something on the board or stop the tracking and remain on the written content on the blackboard previously written by the lecturer. I would like to know if there is an strategy on how to deal with this problem on the work of Benjamin Wulff ? Any way the demo clip is very impressive and I am sure it is a big step towards lecture recordings automation. Cheers to Benjamin Wulff and others working with him on this project. Best Jack -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Schulte Olaf A. Sent: Thursday, August 30, 2012 11:06 AM To: Opencast Matterhorn; Opencast Community; Opencast Matterhorn Subject: [Opencast] Automated camera tracking to be integrated with Opencast Matterhorn Dear All ELAN e.V. together with Osnabruck University and ETH Zurich would like to announce they are working towards an automated camera tracking system "LectureSight", fully integrated with Opencast Matterhorn. The module will provide a solution to automatically track speakers in a classroom situation, thus providing a more convenient shot of the instructor when compared to a fixed overview camera. The goal is to come to a subjective quality close to a manned camera in a standard setting, thus reducing the staffing cost for lecture recording significantly. Technically , the software consists of a set of OSGI bundles that can be added to an existing Matterhorn system or live as a stand-alone application. The video analysis portions of the system utilize the GPU through the OpenCL standard. The software breaks down into six major components: 1. a scene analysis that discovers and tracks the positions of moving objects in the scene 2. a plug-in mechanism for object analysis modules 3. a facility for communicating with PTZ cameras (currently supports Sony VISCA protocol) 4. a module that controls the movement of the PTZ camera 5. a virtual camera operator that executes camera control strategies defined in JavaScript 6. a GUI for tuning the system for individual class rooms The project is based on a bachelor thesis by Benjamin Wulff (described at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?arnumber=6123405&abstractAccess=no&userType=inst with the original project name "OpenTrack") and has Benjamin leading this effort with contributions from Alexander Fecke. LectureSight will be piloted in situ at UOS and ETH in the fall semester 2012. Expect to be informed about first results by the end of the year. For a sneak preview, take a look at the current development snapshot (http://video2.virtuos.uni-osnabrueck.de:8080/engage/ui/watch.html?id=6dba66d9-0a53-45ed-bc67-7ab3bf50b31c) or go to the project website http://lecturesight.org/. Feedback and questions are welcome. Regards Rüdiger, Olaf A. _______________________________________________ Community mailing list [email protected] http://lists.opencastproject.org/mailman/listinfo/community To unsubscribe please email [email protected] _______________________________________________ _______________________________________________ Community mailing list [email protected] http://lists.opencastproject.org/mailman/listinfo/community To unsubscribe please email [email protected] _______________________________________________
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