A new video surveillance system compresses video data and sends it with virtually no delay over just about any communication network.

Essential Viewing’s software compresses signals by effectively making a sketch of each image rather than transmitting it pixel by pixel. A neural network breaks each image down into a series of shapes from a code book that contains 512 curves, triangles and so forth. The program then translates the configuration of shapes to reassemble them into an image at the other end.

The compressed data requires as little as 1 percent of the transmission capacity of the same image sent uncompressed.