Person detecting apparatus and method and privacy protection system employing the same

• US 20050152579A1
• Filed: 11/18/2004
• Published: 07/14/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 11/18/2003
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Inventors: Kim, Dongkwan, Park, Chanmin, Yoon, Sangmin, Kim, Sangryong
• Application Number:
  US10/991,077
• Publication Number:
  US 20050152579A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/103
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/52 Surveillance or monitoring of activities, e.g. for recognising suspicious objects recognising microscopic objects G06V20/69
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/103 Static body considered as a whole, e.g. static pedestrian or occupant recognition
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 13/19608 Tracking movement of a target, e.g. by detecting an object predefined as a target, using target direction and or velocity to predict its new position
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 13/19686 Interfaces masking personal details for privacy, e.g. blurring faces, vehicle license plates

Abstract

A person detection apparatus and method, and a privacy protection system using the method and apparatus, the person detection apparatus includes: a motion region detection unit, which detects a motion region from a current frame image using motion information between frames; and a person detecting/tracking unit, which detects a person in the detected motion region using shape information of persons, and performs a tracking process on a motion region detected as the person in a previous frame image within a predetermined tracking region.

Claims

1. A person detection apparatus comprising:

a motion region detection unit, which detects a motion region from a current frame image using motion information between frames; and

a person detecting/tracking unit, which detects a person in the motion region by using shape information of persons, and performs a tracking process, on the person in a previous frame image, within a predetermined tracking region.

2. The person detection apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the motion region detection unit comprises:

a background image detection unit, which detects a background image in the current frame image using motion information between at least two frame images;

a difference image generation unit, which generates a difference image between the detected background image and the current frame image; and

a motion region labeling unit, which generates sizes and weight centers of the motion region performing a labeling process on the motion region which belongs to the difference image.

3. The person detection apparatus according to claim 2, wherein, in the background image detection unit, a pixel value difference between the background image and the current frame image is compared with a predetermined threshold value, and the difference image is generated using pixels having the pixel value difference greater than the predetermined threshold value.

4. The person detection apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the person detecting/tracking unit comprises:

a normalization unit, which normalizes the motion region into a predetermined size;

a candidate region detection unit, which detects a person candidate region from the normalized motion region; and

a person determination unit, which determines whether the person candidate region corresponds to the person.

5. The person detection apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the person detecting/tracking unit further comprises a size/weight center changing unit, which generates a predetermined number of modified shapes for the motion region by changing sizes and weight centers of normalized motion regions, and determines whether the modified shapes of the motion region corresponds to a person candidate region.

6. The person detection apparatus according to claim 4, wherein the person determination unit comprises:

an edge image generation unit, which generates an edge image of the person candidate region;

a model image storage unit, which stores another edge image of a model image;

a similarity evaluation unit, which evaluates similarity between the other edge image of the model image and the edge image generated by the edge image generation unit; and

a determination unit, which determines based on the evaluated similarity whether the person candidate region corresponds to the person.

7. The person detection apparatus according to claim 6, wherein the model image is constructed with a long distance model image and a short distance model image.

8. The person detection apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a mosaicking unit, which detects a face in the motion region which is determined to correspond to the person, performs a mosaicking process on the face, generates a mosaicked face and displays the mosaicked face.

9. The person detection apparatus according to claim 8 further comprising a storage unit, which stores the motion region, which is detected or tracked as the person, and stores predetermined labels and position information of the motion region used for searching frame units.

10. The person detection apparatus according to claim 9 further comprising a searching unit, which searches the motion region stored in the storage unit using the predetermined labels.

11. The person detection apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the motion region detection unit further comprises an image conversion unit converting the current frame image into a black-and-white image, reducing the influence of illumination and processing time.

12. The person detection apparatus according to claim 11, wherein the motion region detection unit further comprises a storage unit storing the current frame image used to generate an average accumulated image of a next frame.

13. The person detection apparatus according to claim 12, wherein the motion region detection unit further comprises an average accumulated image generation unit obtaining an average image between the black-and-white image of the current frame image and a previous frame image stored in the storage unit, adds the average image to the average accumulated image of a previous frame and generates the average accumulated image of the current frame.

14. The person detection apparatus according to claim 1, wherein in the tracking process, the predetermined tracking region is allocated in advance saving processing time associated with the detection of the person.

15. The person detection apparatus according to claim 4, wherein the person candidate region is detected from an image detected by a camera located indoors or outdoors using the motion information between the current frame image and the previous frame image.

16. The person detection apparatus according to claim 15, wherein the person detected in the previous frame image is directly subjected to the tracking process.

17. A person detection method comprising:

detecting a motion region from a current frame image using motion information between frames; and

detecting a person in the detected motion region using shape information of persons, and performing a tracking process on the person in a previous frame image within a predetermined tracking region.

18. The person detection method according to claim 17 further comprising:

detecting a face in the motion region which is detected or tracked as the person, performing a mosaicking process on the face, generating a mosaicked face and displaying the mosaicked face.

19. The person detection method according to claim 18 further comprising:

storing the motion region, which is detected or tracked as the person, and storing predetermined labels and position information of the motion region used for searching frame units.

20. The person detection method according to claim 17, wherein the detecting the motion region comprises:

detecting a background image in the current frame image using the motion information between the frame images;

generating a difference image between the detected background image and the current frame image; and

generating sizes and weight centers of the motion region by performing a labeling process on the motion region which belongs to the difference image.

21. The person detection method according to claim 20, wherein, in the generating a difference image, a pixel value difference between the background image and the current frame image is compared with a predetermined threshold value, and the difference image is generated using pixels having a pixel value difference greater than the predetermined threshold value.

22. The person detection method according to claim 17, wherein the detecting the person in the motion region comprises:

normalizing the motion region into a predetermined size;

detecting a person candidate region from the normalized motion region; and

determining whether the person candidate region corresponds to a person.

23. The person detection method according to claim 22, wherein the detecting the person in the motion region further comprises

detecting a face in the motion region which is determined to correspond to the person, performing a mosaicking process on the face, generating a mosaicked face and displaying the mosaicked face.

24. The person detection method according to claim 23, wherein detecting a person in the motion region further comprises

storing the motion region which is determined to correspond to the person, and storing predetermined labels and position information of the motion region used for searching frame units.

25. The person detection method according to claim 22, wherein, in the detecting the person candidate region, a predetermined number of modified shapes for the motion region are generated by changing sizes and weight centers of the normalized motion region, and determining whether the modified shapes of the motion region correspond to the person candidate region.

26. The person detection method according to claim 22, wherein, in the detecting the person candidate region, the person candidate region is detected using a Mahalanobis distance map and a support vector machine (SVM).

27. The person detection method according to claim 22, wherein the determining whether the person candidate region corresponds to the person comprises:

generating an edge image for the person candidate region;

evaluating similarity between the edge image of a model image and the generated edge image;

determining based on the evaluated similarity whether the person candidate region corresponds to the person

28. The person detection method according to claim 27, wherein the similarity is evaluated based on a Hausdorff distance.

29. The person detection method according to claim 27, wherein the model image is constructed with a long distance model image and a short distance model image.

30. The person detection method according to claim 17, wherein in the tracking process, the predetermined tracking region is allocated in advance saving processing time associated with the detection of the person.

31. The person detection method according to claim 30, wherein the person detected in the previous frame image is directly subjected to the tracking process.

32. A computer readable recording medium storing a program for executing a person detection method comprising:

detecting a motion region from a current frame image by using motion information between frames; and

detecting a person in the detected motion region using shape information of persons, and performing a tracking process on the motion region detected as the person in a previous frame image within a predetermined tracking region.

33. A privacy protection system comprising:

a motion region detection unit, which detects a motion region from a current frame image using motion information between frames;

a person detecting/tracking unit, which detects a person in the motion region using shape information of persons, and performs a tracking process on the motion region detected as the person in a previous frame image within a predetermined tracking region;

a mosaicking unit, which detects a face in the motion region which is determined to correspond to the person, performs a mosaicking process on the face, generates a mosaicked face and displays the mosaicked face; and

a storage unit, which stores the motion region which is detected or tracked as the person, and stores predetermined labels and position information used for searching frame units.

34. The privacy protection system according to claim 33 further comprising a searching unit, which searches the motion regions stored in the storage unit using the predetermined labels.

35. A motion detection apparatus comprising:

a motion region detection unit which detects a motion region from a current frame image using motion information between frame images; and

an object detecting/tracking unit which detects an object in the motion region using shape information of the object, and performs a tracking process, on the object in a previous frame image, within a predetermined tracking region.

36. The motion detection apparatus according to claim 35, wherein the motion region detection unit comprises:

a background image detection unit which detects a background image in the current frame image using motion information between frame images;

a difference image generation unit which generates a difference image between the detected background image and the current frame image; and

a motion region labeling unit which generates sizes and weight centers of the motion region performing a labeling process on the motion region which belongs to the difference image.

37. The motion detection apparatus according to claim 36, wherein the object detecting/tracking unit comprises:

a normalization unit which normalizes the motion region into a predetermined size;

a candidate region detection unit which detects an object candidate region from the normalized motion region; and

a object determination unit which determines whether the object candidate region corresponds to the object.