Nest-crowdcontrol: Advanced video-based crowd monitoring for large public events

Current video surveillance systems still lack of intelligent video and data analysis modules for supporting situation awareness of decision makers. Especially in mass gatherings like large public events, the decision maker would benefit from different views of the area, especially from crowd density estimations. This article describes a multi-camera system called NEST and its application for crowd density analysis. First, the overall system design is presented. Based on this, the crowd density estimation method is explained. The graphical user interface consists of two components: a georeferenced dynamic heat-map visualization and an interactive video stream visualization. Both components allow a direct camera control. In addition, the system is equipped with an adaptive privacy masking for privacy protection.