Automatic segmentation of moving objects in video sequences: a region labeling approach

Abstract--The emerging video coding standard MPEG-4 enables various content-based functionalities for multimedia applications. To support such functionalities, as well as to improve coding efficiency, MPEG-4 relies on a decomposition of each frame of an image sequence into video object planes (VOPs). Each VOP corresponds to a single moving object in the scene. This paper presents a new method for automatic segmentation of moving objects in image sequences for VOP extraction. We formulate the problem as graph labeling over a region adjacency graph (RAG), based on motion information. The label field is modeled as a Markov random field (MRF). An initial spatial partition of each frame is obtained by a fast, floating-point based implementation of the watershed algorithm. The motion of each region is estimated by hierarchical region matching. To avoid inaccuracies in occlusion areas, a novel motion validation scheme is presented. A dynamic memory, based on object tracking, is incorporated i...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2002
• Where: TCSV
• Authors: Yaakov Tsaig, Amir Averbuch
• Keywords: Image Sequences, TCSV 2002, Various Content-based Functionalities, Video Object Planes