Patent · US Expired

Systems and methods for tracking objects in video sequences

US6901110B1 · kind B1 · utility

71Cited by
10References
9Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateMar 10, 2000
Grant dateMay 31, 2005
Priority date
Expiry dateMar 10, 2020

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG06T2207/10016
  • WIPO fieldAudio-visual technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A method for tracking one or multiple objects from an input video sequence allows a user to select one or more regions that contain the object(s) of interest in the first and the last frame of their choice. An initialization component selects the current and the search frame and divides the selected region into equal sized macroblocks. An edge detection component computes the gradient of the current frame for each macroblock and a threshold component decides then which of the macroblocks contain sufficient information for tracking the desired object. A motion estimation component computes for each macroblock in the current frame its position in the search frame. The motion estimation component utilizes a search component that executes a novel search algorithm to find the best match. The mean absolute difference between two macroblocks is used as the matching criterion. The motion estimation component returns the estimated displacement vector for each block. An output component collects the motion vectors of all the predicted blocks and calculates the new position of the object in the next frame.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.