  Video Synopsis is a technique that performs video compression in a way that
preserves the activity in the video. This technique is particularly useful in
surveillance and monitoring applications. Although it is still a nascent field
of research, there have been several approaches proposed over the last two
decades varying with the application, optimization type, nature of data feed,
etc. The primary data required for these algorithms arises from some sort of
object tracking method. In this paper, we discuss different spatio-temporal
data representations suitable for different applications. We also present a
formal definition for the video synopsis algorithm. We further discuss the
assumptions and modifications to this definition required for a simpler version
of the problem. We explore the application of a packing algorithm to solve the
problem of video synopsis. Since the nature of the data is three dimensional,
we consider 3D packing problems in the discussion. This paper also provides an
extensive literature review of different video synopsis methods and packing
problems. Lastly, we examine the different applications of this algorithm and
how the different data representations discussed earlier can make the problem
simpler. We also discuss the future directions of research that can be explored
following this discussion.
