Background Subtraction in Video Surveillance

The aim of thesis is the real-time detection of moving and unconstrained surveillance environments monitored with static cameras. This is achieved based on the results provided by background subtraction. For this task, Gaussian Mixture Models (GMMs) and Kernel density estimation (KDE) are used. A thorough review of state-of-the-art formulations for the use of GMMs and KDE in the task of background subtraction reveals some further development opportunities, which are tackled in a novel GMM-based approach incorporating a variance controlling scheme. The proposed approach method is for parametric and non-parametric and gives us the better method for background subtraction, with more accuracy and easier parametrization of the models, for different environments. It also converges to more accurate models of the scenes. The detection of moving objects is achieved by using the results of background subtraction. For the detection of new static objects, two background models, learning at different rates, are used. This allows for a multi-class pixel classification, which follows the temporality of the changes detected by means of background subtraction. In a first approach, the subtraction of background models is done for parametric model and their results are shown. The second approach is for non-parametric models, where background subtraction is done using KDE non-parametric model. Furthermore, we have done some video engineering, where the background subtraction algorithm was employed so that, the background from one video and the foreground from another video are merged to form a new video. By doing this way, we can also do more complex video engineering with multiple videos. Finally, the results provided by region analysis can be used to improve the quality of the background models, therefore, considerably improving the detection results

Accurate video object tracking using a region-based particle filter

Usually, in particle filters applied to video tracking, a simple geometrical shape, typically an ellipse, is used in order to bound the object being tracked. Although it is a good tracker, it tends to a bad object representation, as most of the world objects are not simple geometrical shapes. A better way to represent the object is by using a region-based approach, such as the Region Based Particle Filter (RBPF). This method exploits a hierarchical region based representation associated with images to tackle both problems at the same time: tracking and video object segmentation. By means of RBPF the object segmentation is resolved with high accuracy, but new problems arise. The object representation is now based on image partitions instead of pixels. This means that the amount of possible combinations has now decreased, which is computationally good, but an error on the regions taken for the object representation leads to a higher estimation error than methods working at pixel level. On the other hand, if the level of regions detail in the partition is high, the estimation of the object turns to be very noisy, making it hard to accurately propagate the object segmentation. In this thesis we present new tools to the existing RBPF. These tools are focused on increasing the RBPF performance by means of guiding the particles towards a good solution while maintaining a particle filter approach. The concept of hierarchical flow is presented and exploited, a Bayesian estimation is used in order to assign probabilities of being object or background to each region, and the reduction, in an intelligent way, of the solution space , to increase the RBPF robustness while reducing computational effort. Also changes on the already proposed co-clustering in the RBPF approach are proposed. Finally, we present results on the recently presented DAVIS database. This database comprises 50 High Definition video sequences representing several challenging situations. By using this dataset, we compare the RBPF with other state-ofthe- art methods

Single camera pose estimation using Bayesian filtering and Kinect motion priors

Traditional approaches to upper body pose estimation using monocular vision rely on complex body models and a large variety of geometric constraints. We argue that this is not ideal and somewhat inelegant as it results in large processing burdens, and instead attempt to incorporate these constraints through priors obtained directly from training data. A prior distribution covering the probability of a human pose occurring is used to incorporate likely human poses. This distribution is obtained offline, by fitting a Gaussian mixture model to a large dataset of recorded human body poses, tracked using a Kinect sensor. We combine this prior information with a random walk transition model to obtain an upper body model, suitable for use within a recursive Bayesian filtering framework. Our model can be viewed as a mixture of discrete Ornstein-Uhlenbeck processes, in that states behave as random walks, but drift towards a set of typically observed poses. This model is combined with measurements of the human head and hand positions, using recursive Bayesian estimation to incorporate temporal information. Measurements are obtained using face detection and a simple skin colour hand detector, trained using the detected face. The suggested model is designed with analytical tractability in mind and we show that the pose tracking can be Rao-Blackwellised using the mixture Kalman filter, allowing for computational efficiency while still incorporating bio-mechanical properties of the upper body. In addition, the use of the proposed upper body model allows reliable three-dimensional pose estimates to be obtained indirectly for a number of joints that are often difficult to detect using traditional object recognition strategies. Comparisons with Kinect sensor results and the state of the art in 2D pose estimation highlight the efficacy of the proposed approach.Comment: 25 pages, Technical report, related to Burke and Lasenby, AMDO 2014 conference paper. Code sample: https://github.com/mgb45/SignerBodyPose Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJMTSo7-uF

A comprehensive review of vehicle detection using computer vision

A crucial step in designing intelligent transport systems (ITS) is vehicle detection. The challenges of vehicle detection in urban roads arise because of camera position, background variations, occlusion, multiple foreground objects as well as vehicle pose. The current study provides a synopsis of state-of-the-art vehicle detection techniques, which are categorized according to motion and appearance-based techniques starting with frame differencing and background subtraction until feature extraction, a more complicated model in comparison. The advantages and disadvantages among the techniques are also highlighted with a conclusion as to the most accurate one for vehicle detection

Probabilistic three-dimensional object tracking based on adaptive depth segmentation

Object tracking is one of the fundamental topics of computer vision with diverse applications. The arising challenges in tracking, i.e., cluttered scenes, occlusion, complex motion, and illumination variations have motivated utilization of depth information from 3D sensors. However, current 3D trackers are not applicable to unconstrained environments without a priori knowledge. As an important object detection module in tracking, segmentation subdivides an image into its constituent regions. Nevertheless, the existing range segmentation methods in literature are difficult to implement in real-time due to their slow performance. In this thesis, a 3D object tracking method based on adaptive depth segmentation and particle filtering is presented. In this approach, the segmentation method as the bottom-up process is combined with the particle filter as the top-down process to achieve efficient tracking results under challenging circumstances. The experimental results demonstrate the efficiency, as well as robustness of the tracking algorithm utilizing real-world range information

Efficient MRF Energy Propagation for Video Segmentation via Bilateral Filters

Segmentation of an object from a video is a challenging task in multimedia applications. Depending on the application, automatic or interactive methods are desired; however, regardless of the application type, efficient computation of video object segmentation is crucial for time-critical applications; specifically, mobile and interactive applications require near real-time efficiencies. In this paper, we address the problem of video segmentation from the perspective of efficiency. We initially redefine the problem of video object segmentation as the propagation of MRF energies along the temporal domain. For this purpose, a novel and efficient method is proposed to propagate MRF energies throughout the frames via bilateral filters without using any global texture, color or shape model. Recently presented bi-exponential filter is utilized for efficiency, whereas a novel technique is also developed to dynamically solve graph-cuts for varying, non-lattice graphs in general linear filtering scenario. These improvements are experimented for both automatic and interactive video segmentation scenarios. Moreover, in addition to the efficiency, segmentation quality is also tested both quantitatively and qualitatively. Indeed, for some challenging examples, significant time efficiency is observed without loss of segmentation quality.Comment: Multimedia, IEEE Transactions on (Volume:16, Issue: 5, Aug. 2014