Whole lot of shaking – But it doesn’t degrade the video

A video demonstration from Axis highlights the image stabilisation capabilities of their latest network cameras. Image stabilisation isn’t new, of course, but the ability to deal with extreme situations like this results from Axis’ innovation to provide “robust, real-time image stabilisation.”

The video shows a demonstration Axis presented at IFSEC. The capability is the result of the “introduction of efficient gyroscopes in combination with cutting-edge software programming.” In other words, there is a software element (made possible because of additional computing power inside the newest cameras) and a hardware element.

Axis explains: “The development of affordable gyroscopes together with more efficient algorithms for modelling camera motion have made stabilisation techniques more available. Hybrid systems use gyroscopes to process the images digitally according to those gyroscopic signals. Axis chose this combined method because of its versatility. … Even in poor lighting, the system performs very well since it relies on gyroscopic information, rather than video content, for motion calculations. For the same reason, the system can always distinguish between perceived motion caused by passing objects and physically induced vibrations.”

Better accommodation of vibration also allows privacy masking to be more precise. The stabilised images save bandwidth use and storage, too (because there is less change from one frame to the next).

Without image stabilisation, vibration can make video quality blurry. Image stabilisation can maintain image quality in zoom shots when vibrations would otherwise affect video quality.

Trying to envision applications with this extreme level of movement, I can only think of the possibility of mounting a video camera onto a jackhammer. Viewing the video at IFSEC, one journalist commented: “That’s how I will be seeing things tonight.”