An advanced video-based system for monitoring active volcanoes

Video surveillance systems are consolidated techniques for monitoring eruptive phenomena in volcanic areas. Along with these systems, which use standard video cameras, people working in this field sometimes make use of infrared cameras providing useful information about the thermal evolution of eruptions. Real-time analysis of the acquired frames is required, along with image storing, to analyze and classify the activity of volcanoes. Human effort and large storing capabilities are hence required to perform monitoring tasks. In this paper we present a new strategy aimed at improving the performance of video surveillance systems in terms of human-independent image processing and storing optimization. The proposed methodology is based on real-time thermo-graphic analysis of the area considered. The analysis is performed by processing images acquired with an IR camera and extracting information about meaningful volcanic events. Two software tools were developed. The first provides information about the activity being monitored and automatically adapts the image storing rate. The second tool automatically produces useful information about the eruptive activity encompassed by a selected frame sequence. The software developed includes a suitable user interface allowing for convenient management of the acquired images and easy access to information about the volcanic activity monitored. (C) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.