Panopticon: a parallel video overview system

Abstract

Panopticon is a video surrogate system that displays multiple sub-sequences in parallel to present a rapid overview of the entire sequence to the user. A novel, precisely animated arrangement slides thumbnails to provide a consistent spatiotemporal layout while allowing any sub-sequence of the original video to be watched without interruption. Furthermore, this output can be generated offline as a highly efficient repeated animation loop, making it suitable for resource-constrained environments, such as web-based interaction. Two versions of Panopticon were evaluated using three different types of video footage with the aim of determining the usability of the proposed system. Results demonstrated an advantage over another surrogate with surveillance footage in terms of search times and this advantage was further improved with Panopticon 2. Eye tracking data suggests that Panopticon's advantage stems from the animated timeline that users heavily rely on.