MULTIMEDIA DATA MODEL FOR VIDEO-DETECTION RESEARCH

Traffic monitoring and detection systems are important for constructin g closed-loop traffic-signal control, freeway-control, and congestion- management systems. Most detection and monitoring systems depend on in ductive loops. Recently, many agencies have been investigating video-i mage-based detection systems because cameras can collect data on sever al traffic lanes and can be installed quite rapidly on an adjacent pol e or bridge. User consensus is that the basic hardware architecture of these systems is well defined. However, there is room for significant improvements in performance and capability of video-detection algorit hms. Several researchers are currently working to develop new algorith ms. However, due to technology limitations these algorithms have tradi tionally been evaluated at a macroscopic level by comparing counts obt ained by loop detectors with the image-based detection system. This pa per discusses the development of a multimedia database-management syst em for investigating the microscopic performance of video-detection al gorithms. The paper describes the process of acquiring the proper data , a definition for a suitable database schema, and the peripheral data base clients required to evaluate detection algorithms.