AUTOMATED REDUCTION OF VIDEO-BASED DATA

WE PROPOSE TO DESIGN, EVALUATE AND DEVELOP A PC-WINDOWS BASED WORKSTATION FOR AUTOMATED VIDEO DATA REDUCTION SPECIALLY ADDRESSING THE VEHICLE TRACK AND LATERAL PLACEMENT MESUREMENT FOR HUMAN FACTOR AND HIGHWAY SAFETY EXPERIMENTS. THIS DESIGN LEVERAGES A MULTIPLE PERSON-YEAR INVESTMENT AT TAU IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF TURNKEY FEATURE TRACKING SYSTEMS. THIS NEW PC-BASED SYSTEM CONSISTS OF A VIDEO RECORDING SUBSYSTEM THAT IS PLACED IN THE VEHICLE AND A DATA REDUCTION WORKSTATION IN THE LABORATORY. IN ADDITION TO IMAGE ANALYSIS AND 3-D ESTIMATION SOFTWARE, THE DESIGN INCLUDES SELECTION OF CAMERA PARAMETERS, RECORDING AND TIME STAMPING EQUIPMENT, AND THE WORKSTATION HARDWARE. VEHICLE LATERAL PLACEMENT IS ESTIMATED AUTOMATICALLY AND TRACKED FRAME-BY-FRAME BY USING THE PAVEMENT EDGE OR LANE MARKERS AS THE CONTROL FEATURES. THE WTO PARAMETERS DESCRIBING A LINE I NPIXEL SPACE ALONG WITH THE FIELD-FO-VIEW CALIBRATION DATA AND CERTAIN ASSUMED CONSTRAINTS ARE USED TO ESTIMATE THE VEHICLE LATERAL POSITION AND ITS HEADING. THE CAMERA OPTICS, POSITION, AND POINTING ARE DISCUSSED AS IMPORTANT DESIGN PARAMETERS. A CALIBRATION BILLBOARD IS SUGGESTED FOR CALIBRATING THE CMAERA POSITION AND POINTING ANGLES RELATIVE TO THE VEHICLE USING VIDEO CAPTURED IN THE FIELD. THE CAMERA LENS, VIDEO TIME BASE AND SAMPLING EFFECTS ARE MODELED BY A COMPREHENSIVE END-TO-END CALIBRATION.