Computer vision is the branch of artificial intelligence that focuses on providing computers with the functions typical of human vision. Machines that see! Here see means the machine is able to extract information from an image, to solve some task, or perhaps "understand" the scene in either a broad or limited sense by automated processing of images from the real world on a real time basis.
In the area of video surveillance long gone are the days when video surveillance meant low-resolution, black-and-white, analog closed-circuit television. Nowadays, computer vision enables the integration of views from many cameras and automatically detects scenes with people and/or vehicles or other targets of interest, classifies them in categories such as people, cars, buses or luggage extracts their trajectories, recognizes limb and arm positions, and provides some form of behavior analysis. The analysis relies on a list of previously specified behaviors or on statistical observations such as frequent-versus-infrequent behaviors in order to automatically detect suspicious behavior and assist the security personnel on focusing their attention on events of interest.
In the area of business intelligence a video analytics system with customer counting, tracking and preferences logging provides a means of improving customer satisfaction by analyzing customer wait time, better pedestrian flow and manage of staff assignments and improving of marketing by traffic hot and cold zone identification and area use metrics.
