A spatially distributed model for foreground segmentation

Foreground segmentation is a fundamental first processing stage for vision systems which monitor real-world activity. In this paper we consider the problem of achieving robust segmentation in scenes where the appearance of the background varies unpredictably over time. Variations may be caused by processes such as moving water, or foliage moved by wind, and typically degrade the performance of standard per-pixel background models. Our proposed approach addresses this problem by modeling homogeneous regions of scene pixels as an adaptive mixture of Gaussians in color and space. Model components are used to represent both the scene background and moving foreground objects. Newly observed pixel values are probabilistically classified, such that the spatial variance of the model components supports correct classification even when the background appearance is significantly distorted. We evaluate our method over several challenging video sequences, and compare our results with both per-pixel and Markov Random Field based models. Our results show the effectiveness of our approach in reducing incorrect classifications

Markovian framework for foreground-background-shadow separation of real world video scenes

In this paper we give a new model for foreground-background-shadow separation. Our method extracts the faithful silhouettes of foreground objects even if they have partly background like colors and shadows are observable on the image. It does not need any a priori information about the shapes of the objects, it assumes only they are not point-wise. The method exploits temporal statistics to characterize the background and shadow, and spatial statistics for the foreground. A Markov Random Field model is used to enhance the accuracy of the separation. We validated our method on outdoor and indoor video sequences captured by the surveillance system of the university campus, and we also tested it on well-known benchmark videos

Bayesian foreground and shadow detection in uncertain frame rate surveillance videos

In in this paper we propose a new model regarding foreground and shadow detection in video sequences. The model works without detailed a-priori object-shape information, and it is also appropriate for low and unstable frame rate video sources. Contribution is presented in three key issues: (1) we propose a novel adaptive shadow model, and show the improvements versus previous approaches in scenes with difficult lighting and coloring effects. (2)We give a novel description for the foreground based on spatial statistics of the neighboring pixel values, which enhances the detection of background or shadow-colored object parts. (3) We show how microstructure analysis can be used in the proposed framework as additional feature components improving the results. Finally, a Markov Random Field model is used to enhance the accuracy of the separation. We validate our method on outdoor and indoor sequences including real surveillance videos and well-known benchmark test sets