An advanced video system for monitoring active volcanoes

Video surveillance systems are consolidated techniques for monitoring eruptive phenomena in volcanic areas. Alongwith these systems, which use standard video cameras, people working in this field sometimes make use of infraredcameras providing useful information about the thermal evolution of eruptions. Real-time analysis of the acquiredframes is required, along with image storing, to analyze and classify the activity of volcanoes. Human effort and largestoring 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 ofhuman-independent image processing and storing optimization. The proposed methodology is based on real-timethermo-graphic analysis of the area considered. The analysis is performed by processing images acquired with an IRcamera and extracting information about meaningful volcanic events.Two software tools were developed. The first provides information about the activity being monitored andautomatically adapts the image storing rate. The second tool automatically produces useful information about theeruptive activity encompassed by a selected frame sequence.The software developed includes a suitable user interface allowing for convenient management of the acquired imagesand easy access to information about the volcanic activity monitored.