Video Investigator® 64:
Forensic Image & Video Processing Software
Part of the Tri-Suite64 software package, Video Investigator® 64 is designed to process video files and still images alike, including enhancing CCTV footage. There are a variety of methods that can be used in either scenario, which is what makes Video Investigator® 64 such a powerful video and image enhancement software package. No other software will offer the vast array of filters and features to enhance video and images like Video Investigator offers its users.
Get everything other image enhancement software, video deblurring software, and video resolution enhancement software has all in one package and one software with even more features. Video Investigator is the best forensic video enhancement software available.
Easy To Use and Powerful Interface for Forensic Image and Video Enhancement Software
1. In order to enhance CCTV footage the end-user is presented with the versatile user interface that allows for interactive change of processing parameters and interactive geometry selection (Glyphs). Video Investigator’s Active Interface GUI enables the user to execute the integrated plug-ins in a highly interactive mode with real-time results (*) which are seen in a video preview. This advanced video processing interface allows the user to find the most optimal set of video processing parameters in a highly interactive way.
2. Video Investigator’s Active Interface (*) provides the user the capability to adaptively estimate the best set of processing parameters for any part of a video frame and vary these parameters if needed from frame to frame, or from a set of frames in a time-interval to another time-interval, yet processing the entire video in a single processing pipeline. This frame-adaptive video processing (*) feature accelerates the user’s ability for time-space-adaptive processing of the entire video without first extracting each individual frame and individual parts of frames. An example of using the frame-adaptive video processing is when debluring the video in which different objects and subjects are blurred differently due to the time-varying motion blur and space-varying defocus blur. Cognitech Video Investigator is in part the world’s best image enhancement software because it allows the end-user precisely adjust processing parameters to each video-frame and even any part of the video-frame.
3. To enhance CCTV footage it is important to be able to select and play the frame sequences that may or may not be connected on a time-line. The Movie Controller provides advanced video playback with audio support allowing the end-user to adjust which frames of video to playback, how frames are played back, and even synchronize multiple videos.
Vast Array of Selection Tools for Every Scenario
4. Smart Selection Window Tool provides end-user with a versatile set of tools to select single or multiple objects of interest quickly through the video frames. Seventeen different tools are available to deal with Selection operations.Save Selection is provided for a subsequent recall and use, to save the laborious selection process.
5. Objects and subjects Tracking is made possible by interpolating the Selection Position and Size between key-frames, thus tracking objects and people that may be moving towards or away from the camera. This specific function is useful for tracking an object with a consistent velocity in a movie.
6. Glyph Tools with Free Form Curves and Regions Selection are Drawing Tools that create various Active geometrical tokens to be used as an input to plug-ins to guide their execution. Glyph tokens include Points, Lines, Open and Closed Plygons, Rectangles and Ovals. He newest addition are Free Form Curves and regions. Glyph tokens may be computed automatically, such as Tracking Rectangles, Line Detectection etc., or they may be selected and drawn by the end-user. Glyphs are useful to compute Velocity, Select and Track objects and subjects, assist in 3D Analysis (see Cognitech AutoMeasure and Cognitech VideoActive 3D Model to Video Fusion. With the Free Form Curves and Region Glyphs, the end-user is enabled to select exact geometrical shapes, such as face and objects outlines for subsequent processing, motion and 3D Analysis.
7. Frame Imbedded Glyph Markings provides end-user with ability to precisely mark video frame features (points, corners, edges, lines etc.) in accordance with subsequent needs as in the Reverse Projection or Multi-Frame Fusion for Vehicles Identification.
8. Several images or video can be combined together in layers to form a video composition (*) where every element can be relatively repositioned in the window and in time.
Everyday Tasks
9. The Record function (*), when enabled, records every action the end-user makes and produces a script that can replay the exact actions and settings the end-user used. Unlike traditional report functions that only produce a PDF of parameter values, Video Investigator® Record scripts can be replayed at any time allowing the end-user to see exactly how the result was created.
10. Image sequence compilation converts a set of images into video for analysis or court room presentation.
11. The Zoom filter resizes images with confidence with several innovative zoom algorithms that retain the highest clarity and edge definition (#).
12. The Highlight filter focuses the viewer on a user defined area of interest.
13. Integrated Problems Steps Recorder for faster and more accurate technical support.
14. Integrated Screen shot, image snapshot and drawing tools.
15. The Command Window provides an alternate entry point for executing commands for those who prefer to apply filters in the command line.
Geographical Video Analysis (GPS, Investigation Tools, and Camera-to-Camera Tracking)
16. The VideoMap (VMAP) with Time and Trace Interactive Interface is a new Geographical Information System approach to video analysis. Have you ever wanted to have a tool to track a vehicle or a person from camera to camera? Merging Geographical information with the arbitrary number of video recordings provides valuable analytical tools to investigate multiple video streams data for purposes of determining the time sequence of geographically distributed events. VideoMap tools enable the investigators to chart the Geographical Trace of the vehicles and individuals depicted on multiple videos.
Video Redaction and Sensitive Information Blocking
17. New Automatic Face Blocker filter will automatically blur faces and remove skin markings in images and videos as required by Courts. The end-user can select which individuals should or should not be Redacted. No tedious manual frame by frame blurring, all is done by an automatic detection algorithm.
18. If required by law, portions of images can be tracked and concealed or made unrecognizable to cover sensitive information with pixilation, blur or histogram adjustment.
Analysis and Verification Tools
19. End-users who enhance CCTV footage often need to secure the original video data, prior to performing video processing. Hash Tool allows the viewing and saving of the hash value of an image or video for Authentication. Current Hash values: MD5, SHA-1, and SHA-256.
20. EXIF Tool provides detailed Metadata data of a given image or video file for purposes of Authentication, codec analysis, Time Codes, GPS location id present. This data can be saved and re-opened at a later time.
Active Interface
Visualization
21. Prior and during enhancing CCTV footage it is useful to employ various visualization tools that allow to view the graphical representation of the degraded and degradation corrected video images. The RGB Profile Plot plots the line scans of RGB channels separately, allowing for independent 2D numerical visualization.
22. The 3D Profile Plot displays a 3D plot of the entire image or video in time with a plot elevation corresponding to the image intensity allowing for 3D numerical visualization.
23. The Elevation Plot allows for the numerical visualization of images as 2D plots of linear image slices.
24. The Matrix Tool provides a detailed quantitative look at the pixel values in an image.
25. The Video Scene Integrator provides a method of manually sorting video frames to make event timeline (e.g. following a subject from camera to camera).
26. The Component Information Window provides a detailed description of all images and video in Video Investigator including image dimension, color space, data format, and other important metadata.
Video and Image Enhancement Software Staple: Denoise
Image Enhancement software is also useful in removing random fluctuations that corrupt images by introducing ‘noise’.
27. A large assortment of denoise filters (#) provide both traditional and the most advanced methods for removing image noise without reducing clarity and features in evidence video (e.g. sensor noise and poor weather conditions).
28. Deblocking (#) reduces compression blocking and ringing artifacts related to harsh compression without reducing clarity and preserving fine features.
29. The pattern removal filter (#) is an advanced filter that removes pattern noise from images such as latent prints on textured surfaces.
30. The Average Frames filter generates an image by combining together multiple frames of the movie sequence, removing dynamic noise from stationary objects in the video.
31. The FrameFusion® Denoise filter (#) is a state of the art method of removing noise from an image or video with Cognitech’s patented algorithm that preserves sharp edges and fine textures embedded in noise.
32. The Median filter removes pixels that deviate from the median pixel value such as salt and pepper noise.
33. The Remove Extrema filter is an advanced filer that removes spurious shapes from an image that are due to noise distortions.
34. The Total Variation Denoise filter (#) is a general method, discovered by Cognitech, for removing noise from an image using the Total Variation Minimization technique; retaining edges and minimizing visual artifacts associated with any image processing.
35. Image Enhancement software methods also are useful to remove image/video degradation caused by the non-transparent light propagation between the target and the camera. The fully automatic proprietary Haze Removal filter (#) removes haze and fog from images and videos as wells as enhances low-contrast chromatic images in ways that are different
from the histogram editing.
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Video Deblurring Software
Image Enhancement software is also useful in removing image degradation caused by the blurring processes, such as optical blurs, motion blurs, atmospheric turbulence blurs, general nature Gaussian blurs, diffraction blurs, blurs whose shape (kernel) can be adaptively computed. Deblurring is a staple in forensic image and video processing software. Check out these deblurring features in Cognitech Video Investigator.
36. A large assortment of deblur filters options provide tools for every type of blur problem including motion, defocus, optical, Gaussian averaging, and custom.
37. The Adaptive Deblur filter (ADF) with Interactive Blind Deconvolution (#), unlike any other traditional deblurring filters, ADF deblurs images and videos without any prior exact knowledge of the blurring process and blurring Point Spread Function (PSF Kernel). ADF computationally estimates the blur from a blurred image and allows the end-user to remove complex non-linear blur in many cases when the standard filters like Motion, Gaussian, Outof-Focus filters fail. This class of filters are called Blind Deconvolution and are currently subject of the intense research by the scientific community. Contech has developed its proprietary (US Patents) Adaptive Blind Deconvolution technology which it is provided exclusively to the end-users of TriSuite64. ADF has two modes of operation: (i) Large Non-Linear Motion, Shaking, ‘Overlay’ Blur. This can solve for blurs generated by a sudden large camera motion (e.g. helmet mounted cam in a car accident, Police body cam in physical altercation) or blurs in a fixed camera with the subject/object undergoing curvilinear motion (rotation while moving). The new feature in TriSuite64 is end-users’ ability to visually fit the Adaptive Blur Kernel not only to the 3D motion trajectory causing the blur, but also match the motion velocity for more exact deblurring.
38. (ii) CSI Deblur: Known Crime Scene with Unknown Blur: Cognitech’s Proprietary uniquely SCI approach to the deblurring task. We designed a deblurring algorithm that can use the photos of the Crime Scene to determine the best blurring Kernel PSF and apply it to the surveillance video with objects and subjects no longer in the Crime Scene.
39. The Adaptive Blur filter (#) computationally estimates the blur from a blurred image and allows the end-user to remove complex non-linear blur from any evidence image leading to highly accurate blur removal.
40. The Motion Deblur filter (#) automatically determines the motion direction and length from velocity estimation and removes the estimated motion blur.
41. The Sharpen filter is a simple enhancement solution for producing sharper, clearer images. 73. The Wiener Deblur filter applies any of the available deblur kernels using the Wiener method for fast and accurate blur removal.
42. The Total Variation Deblur filter (#) is a general method, discovered by Cognitech. This filter applies any of the available deblur kernels using the Total Variation method in order to retain edges and minimize visual artifacts, such as ringing, which are commonly associated with traditional blur removal.
Histogram-Based Enhancement
43. Automatic histogram equalization, a particular image enhancement method that can be separately adjusted and applied to each video-frame or any part of the video-frame provides three different methods of automatically enhancing images and video to obtain the best histogram levels locally or globally (e.g. Morpho-Local Equalization (#) will equally enhance features in both under and over exposed regions of the image and in the presence of haze degradation).
44. The Manual Histogram Editor provides Image enhancement software tool with user-defined adjustments for better visualization of low dynamic range content such as night time video.
45. Color correction can enhance hue and saturation of video.
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Reconstruction and Video Resolution Enhancement
46. Video Resolution Enhancement is a scientifically based method to recover lost image/video finer details. The Sub-Pixel Accurate FrameFusion® Reconstruction filter (#) is a Cognitech patented Super-Resolution technique that not only removes noise from video but actually integrates adjacent frame information to form a higher resolution result and works with moving subjects unlike the traditional Video Averaging filter (e.g. license plate number clarification). In TriSuite64 the Cognitech’s Proprietary Sub-Pixel Accurate Reconstruction algorithm is implemented to further improve the resolution of the fine image features, such as License Plate numerals and markings on the suspect.
47. The Stabilization Reconstruction filter utilizes Cognitech’s advanced velocity calculation algorithms to accurately track and stabilize an entire video or particular object (e.g. vehicle dash cam and handheld camera footage).
48. Video Resolution Enhancement can be specifically adapted to resolve finer biometric face features. The FaceFusion3D Reconstruction filter (#) is the newest Cognitech patented technique that combines the principles of FrameFusion® with 3D facial models allowing for the SuperResolution reconstruction of images and videos of human faces in full 3D rotational motion.
49. The Mosaic Reconstruction filter combines multiple frames into a single panoramic picture by accurately stitching common information between frames.
50. The Reconstruction Wizard (*) automates the video stabilization and mosaic reconstruction process for standard use cases. Video Resolution Enhancement with Reconstruction Wizard is a simplified integrated process which combines determination of the video-velocities with the reconstruction from multiple frames.
Interlacing
51. Interlacing and de-interlacing functionality allows for lossless conversion between interlaced and progressive video.
52. The Frame Align operation aligns interlaced frames that are recorded at sequential points in time, doubling the resolution of the objects in the image.
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Transform
53. The Geometric Lens Correction filter (#) corrects for geometric lens distortions automatically without any knowledge of the source camera.
54. The Fourier filter computes the 2D discrete Fourier transformation of images for frequency representation.
55. The Geometric filter provides an interactive interface for any perspective transformation of video frames.
56. The Mirror Image filter is an interactive tool to rotate an image or video 90, 180,-90 degrees and flip horizontally or vertically.
57. The Automatic Rectification filter rectifies an image to correct a perspective distortion due to camera angle, based on user-defined points.
58. The Manual Rectification filter provides an interactive 3D graphic interface for real-time perspective correction.
59. The Wavelet filter computes the 2D dyadic wavelet transform for spline wavelets of minimal support on a rectangular domain for advanced mathematical analysis.
Velocity
60. The Correlation Matching filter estimates the global motion between any set of paired frames (motion patterns) of a movie and produces accurate velocity vectors used to properly account for motion, which is utilized in FrameFusion Reconstruction, Stabilization Reconstruction, etc.
61. The Shape Matching filter (#) estimates the dominant motion between consecutive frames of a movie and produces velocity vectors used to properly account for motion, which is utilized in FrameFusion Reconstruction, Stabilization Reconstruction, etc. Shape matching will work when multiple object motions are present in the video (e.g. foreground and background motion).
62. The Sub-Pixel Accurate Interactive Manual Matching filter (*) manually matches motion between any set of paired frames (motion patterns) of a movie and produces velocity vectors used to properly account for motion, which is utilized in FrameFusion Reconstruction, Stabilization Reconstruction, etc. Manual Matching will always work when automatic methods may not work due to the complexity of motion. The Glyph’s are extensively used to interact with video frames to provide the Matching information. In TriSuite64 the new feature is end-user’s ability to specify Sub-Pixel Accurate Motion to enable more a
Segmentation
63. The Segmentation filter (#) provides an image analysis technique which automatically partitions an image into regions of similar intensity/color used for extracting tattoos.
64. The Edge Detection filter allows the end-user to extract edge features for extracting vehicle markings or license plates in a video.
Supported File Formats and Accurate Video Playback
65. Most image and video file formats are supported including: COG, CFF, 3GP, 3G2, ASF, AVI, BMP, CAL, CMP, CUR, DCM, FLV, FPX, GIF, ICO, IMG, J2K, JPG, M2TS, MAC, MKV, MOV, MP4, MPEG, MSP, MTS, MTV, OGV, PCD, PCT, PCX, PGM, PNG, PSD, RAS, RM, SCT, SWF, TGA, TIFF, TS, VOB, WBMP, WEBM, WMF, WMV, WPG.
66. Streaming video is decoded and converted into a frame accurate format that can be processed and analyzed frame by frame.
67. Cognitech’s patented lossless COG (#) encoding provides at least 50% file size reduction to raw video without any loss of content or quality and is 100% reversible.
68. Cognitech® CogPlayer provides proprietary lossless COG (#) and CFF playback on any computer with Windows Media Player, which enables court presentations on any computer.
69. 32-bit floating point (*) image and video content is supported for more numerical accuracy. All filter computations are done in floating point, maintaining the highest level of quality throughout the signal chain.
70. Cognitech® Video Investigator® and VideoActive® provide frame based video playback allowing for easier and more accurate frame-by-frame analysis than traditional time based video playback software.
*Above items marked with a hashtag (#) indicate unique forensic video capabilities that are proprietary ONLY to Cognitech, Inc. due to issued and pending US and International patents of Cognitech, Inc.
*Above items marked with an asterisk (*) are designated computational design capabilities that are the leading edge of forensic video technology and are not commonly available to other competitors in the field.
Cognitech’s Video Investigator®64 software is sold as part of Cognitech’s Tri-Suite software package (which also includes the AutoMeasure software and the VideoActive software)