[OT]Zm seen thief, need help if anyone know howto better img

sugacapra · Post by **sugacapra** » Thu Mar 01, 2007 5:40 pm

hi there,
tonight my commercial site was robbed by 2 stupid burglars, and i've the images of them.
Poorly the faces are not so clear. The police tell me that they try to reduce "rumors" on image to try to find a clear face image.

Does anyone here has suggest or know how can do similar work (using photoshop? gimp? what else? what need to do? someone know how to better image in the human limit?)

(ok.. Grissom is not avalaible

)
this can really help me to find the robbers (appear to be 2 guys of my zone!)

thanks in advance

Suga

Post by **cordel** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 8:47 pm

If you want to export the events, you can email them to me and I'll see what I might be able to do. I'd set them to archive as well if you have not already done so, this will keep the purge when full filter from removing them.

electron · Post by **electron** » Sat Mar 03, 2007 6:41 am

I'm no photoshop expert, but have had to help w/vandals caught on zm enough lately & figured out 3 things you can do using the gimp in linux, similar to photo shop. Find the drop downs for brightness & contrast & play with those first to optimize any still pics. "deinterlace" is the 3rd thing I mess with. There is also sharpen & denoise filters/dropdowns, but they often did little for me if the camera was focused well. This is assuming B/W cams. As cordel said, archive those events to keep them from being deleted. If you want to make videos also, try -b option for ffmpeg output options to make the videos less blocky, if you set it up to 400 to 1000 Kbits per second. I got good videos from 75 meg file size for 10 min vid. I also found out if you have criminals running fast on foot, 3 fps isn't fast enough, 5 to 8 fps is way better if you can afford the HD space. Better chance of getting that one frame that helps identify the criminal.

Flash_ · Post by **Flash_** » Sat Mar 03, 2007 8:36 am

Would this be considered "tampering with evidence" - manipulating the images?

Also, wouldn't the police themselves prefer to do this - or are they not that bothered?

Might it be worth supplying an "untouched" image too, just to be safe?

Post by **cordel** » Sat Mar 03, 2007 9:34 am

In most cases Video is not admissable in court. They are more likly to just take the images and hope for a confision. If they are not aware that the DVR is ZM they may be assuming that it's an DVR appliance which would not be as much of a risk fo tampering as ZM can be (which of course depends on whats installed with your zm Machine). Also not all Departments have equipment/skills available to clean up the images.

sugacapra · Post by **sugacapra** » Sat Mar 03, 2007 12:52 pm

ok, thanks for all the answers.
I've made a CD backup of the events, give a copy to the police and another i've kept for "future use".
Police capt. tell me that i can give to "expert" if i wish in the hope that some better detail come out, important thing is that this operation is "informal".

From 2 images i was able to recover the "logo" of the jacket of one of the thief.

Any help will be very useful, i trust the police when they tell me that they'll do the best, but maybe some hands can to them can help me have better sleep

so i send to cordel the images of the events, and also to anyone that really want help me, please try to not put them around..otherwise the situation can fall down.

Post by **cordel** » Sat Mar 03, 2007 11:26 pm

Hey Suga,
Only one event (232497) has jpegs saved with the events. You might want to try to get the jpegs from all the events as these will have the greatest detail. I'd be most interested in events 232499 and 232500.
Some thing you might consider as well is lowering your image blendage some so that the video is not so broken up.

Regards,
Corey

sugacapra · Post by **sugacapra** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 8:13 am

argh, my mistake, i sent you the wrong directory

i'll send again the full sequence of images (i've regrouped all)

from an image of event 232499 i recognize the jacket logo (SPEEDO) this can help till the weather keep at least cold !

sugacapra · Post by **sugacapra** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 8:28 am

electron wrote:I'm no photoshop expert, but have had to help w/vandals

[cut]

As cordel said, archive those events to keep them from being deleted. If you want to make videos also, try -b option for ffmpeg output options to make the videos less blocky, if you set it up to 400 to 1000 Kbits per second. I got good videos from 75 meg file size for 10 min vid. I also found out if you have criminals running fast on foot, 3 fps isn't fast enough, 5 to 8 fps is way better if you can afford the HD space. Better chance of getting that one frame that helps identify the criminal.

thanks for both the gimp hints and i've to agree with you, running robber need fps to be high than 3. I think that i'll redo all my videoserver to have a capacity of 6-7 fps when alarmed.

Would this be considered "tampering with evidence" - manipulating the images?

Also, wouldn't the police themselves prefer to do this - or are they not that bothered?

Might it be worth supplying an "untouched" image too, just to be safe?

i've give a full copy of all original images and videos to police. I hope they do the job, but thinking with reality this robbers take little things (ok, about 600 euros in variuos coins, a 15" monitor ,leaving the ac adapter there, and some marlboros pack, so don't know the full total but to me apart the angry of being robbed there are to pay the damage they do, and those are much more of the robbery... ) and none get hurt, so probably they spent little time on it.

also they tell me that i can try to obtain as much more details as possible from image, they'll have the original, but i can help.

also as cordel say the better use police can do is during interrogatory to obtain a full declaration.

thanks
Suga