Characterization of motion of moving objects in video

摘要

A method and system for characterizing the motion of moving objects in video is disclosed. The video can be either compressed or uncompressed form. A typical video scene contains foreground and background objects. Foreground objects temporarily stay in the video. However, a left object or stopped object becomes part of the background scene and remains in the video forever. A plurality of images is inputted to the system in time series. A method and system determines left objects or stopped objects by comparing the background image estimated from the current image of the video with the background estimated from previous images of the video. Difference between the current and previous background images indicates a left or stopped object. Other objects, which do not modify the background image are determined as transitory objects. Background scene of a video can be estimated using the compressed video data as well. If the video is in compressed form, estimating the background in the compressed data domain leads to a computationally efficient method as there is no need to decompress the video. In this case, comparison of the current background scene with the previous background scenes can be carried out in the compressed domain.