Moving-object segmentation using a foreground history map

• Published in: Journal of the Optical Society of America. A, Optics, image science, and vision Optics, image science, and vision, 2010-02, Vol.27 (2), p.180-187
• Main Authors: KWAK, Sooyeong, BAE, Guntae, BYUN, Hyeran
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Biological and medical sciences; Exact sciences and technology; Eye and associated structures. Visual pathways and centers. Vision; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Fundamental areas of phenomenology (including applications); Imaging and optical processing; Optics; Physics; Vertebrates: nervous system and sense organs
• ISSN: 1084-7529; 1520-8532
• DOI: 10.1364/JOSAA.27.000180

This paper describes a real-time foreground segmentation method in monocular video sequences for video teleconferencing. Background subtraction is widely used in foreground segmentation for static cameras. However, the results are usually not accurate enough for background substitution tasks. In this paper, we propose a novel strategy for fast and accurate foreground segmentation. The strategy consists of two steps: initial foreground segmentation and fine foreground segmentation. The key to our algorithm consists of two steps. In the first step, a moving object is roughly segmented using the background subtraction method. In order to update the initial foreground segmentation results in the second step, a region-based segmentation method and a foreground history map (FHM)-based segmentation representing the combination of temporal and spatial information were developed. The segmentation accuracy of the proposed algorithm was evaluated with respect to the ground truth, which was the manually cropped foreground. The experimental results showed that the proposed algorithm improved the accuracy of segmentation with respect to Horprasert's well-known algorithm.