Thread: ISIS: New Video Camera Sees It All

ISIS: New Video Camera Sees It All

ISIS takes new video-camera and image-stitching technology and bolts it to a ceiling, mounts it on a roof, or fastens it to a truck-mounted telescoping mast.

360° surveillance video promises high-res detail, multiple views, and DVR features

Traditional surveillance cameras can be of great assistance to law enforcement officers for a range of scenarios—canvassing a crowd for criminal activity during a Fourth of July celebration, searching for who left a suitcase bomb beneath a bench, or trying to pick out a terrorist who has fled the scene and blended into a teeming throng in the subway. But there are shortfalls. For starters, once they zoom in on a specific point of interest, they lose visual contact with the rest of the scene.

But a new video surveillance system currently being developed by the Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) may soon give law enforcement an extra set of eyes. The Imaging System for Immersive Surveillance (or ISIS) takes new video camera and image-stitching technology and bolts it to a ceiling, mounts it on a roof, or fastens it to a truck-mounted telescoping mast.

Like a bug-eyed fisheye lens, ISIS sees v-e-r-y wide. But that’s where the similarity ends. Whereas a typical fisheye lens distorts the image and can only provide limited resolution, video from ISIS is perfectly detailed, edge-to-edge. That’s because the video is made from a series of individual cameras stitched into a single, live view—like a high-res video quilt.

“Coverage this sweeping, with detail this fine, requires a very high pixel count,â€

This is the type of technology DHS needs. I'm surprised Obama hasn't cut the funding yet... I'm also surprised Janet Napolitano hasn't rescinded the program, because according to her, "the system is working", so why would we need any new technology?