NEW INNOVATORS - KINESENSE-VCA.COM  A NUMBER OF international police forces have purchased technology that allows hours and hours of CCTV footage to be scanned quickly for information of use to an investigation.

An officer investigating a break-in can use the system to pinpoint a period on a CCTV tape that is useful rather than watching through the entire tape.

A CCTV search engine it was developed by Mark Sugrue who researched video processing at university. “I was looking for some application to use the research and I hit on the idea of a CCTV search engine.”

He estimates the time required to search a piece of footage using the software can be reduced by 95 per cent.

The system works by indexing the CCTV footage and then allowing the watcher to pinpoint areas of interest, for example movement near a door or someone wearing a particular colour.

“If you are unsure about what happened, you can target a particular part of the screen, you draw a search box around that and the system will search only for activity in that area.”

Sugrue set up Kinesense in September last year to commercialise the concept and secured a place on DIT’s Hothouse programme. One of the most challenging aspects was designing a system that is compatible with different CCTV formats.

Alongside its search technology, Kinesense has developed a laptop-based unit that can be taken on-site by investigators. “This mobile unit can make a secure, tamper-proof copy of the CCTV footage” which can be used for evidential purposes.

The company is also working on other CCTV analytical products to assist security personal monitoring a number of screens to prioritise cameras to focus on. Sugrue says a number of international police forces have aleady purchased the system, but declines to name them, citing client confidentiality. He said a number of large security firms are also considering it.