A consensus-based method for tracking: Modelling background scenario and foreground appearance

Abstract

Modelling of the background ("uninteresting parts of the scene"), and of the foreground, play important roles in the tasks of visual detection and tracking of objects. This paper presents an effective and adaptive background modelling method for detecting foreground objects in both static and dynamic scenes. The proposed method computes SAmple CONsensus (SACON) of the background samples and estimates a statistical model of the background, per pixel. SACON exploits both color and motion information to detect foreground objects. SACON can deal with complex background scenarios including nonstationary scenes (such as moving trees, rain, and fountains), moved/inserted background objects, slowly moving foreground objects, illumination changes etc. However, it is one thing to detect objects that are not likely to be part of the background; it is another task to track those objects. Sample consensus is again utilized to model the appearance of foreground objects to facilitate tracking. This appearance model is employed to segment and track people through occlusions. Experimental results from several video sequences validate the effectiveness of the proposed method. © 2006 Pattern Recognition Society.