APPARATUS FOR TRACKING AN OBJECT USING A MOVING CAMERA AND METHOD THEREOF

• US 20100134632A1
• Filed: 12/02/2009
• Published: 06/03/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 12/03/2008
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute
• Original Assignee: Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute
• Inventors: KOH, Eunjin, WON, Jongho, KIM, Jintae, BAE, Changseok
• Application Number:
  US12/629,331
• Publication Number:
  US 20100134632A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/169
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/20 Analysis of motion motion estimation for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals H04N19/43, H04N19/51
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/24 Aligning, centring, orientation detection or correction of the image

Abstract

Provided is an apparatus for tracking an object, including: a dynamic area extracting unit that extracts an object to be tracked from an image frame collected through an image collecting apparatus; an object modeling unit that models the object to be tracked extracted through the dynamic area extracting unit to calculate the color distribution of the object to be tracked; and an object tracking unit that calculates the color distribution of a next image frame collected through the image collecting apparatus, after calculating the color distribution of the object to be tracked, and calculates a posterior probability that each pixel belongs to the object to be tracked in the next image frame based on the calculated color distribution of the next image frame and the color distribution of the object to be tracked to track the object to be tracked.

Claims

1. An apparatus for tracking an object, comprising:

a dynamic area extracting unit that extracts an object to be tracked from an image frame collected through an image collecting apparatus;

an object modeling unit that models the object to be tracked extracted through the dynamic area extracting unit to calculate the color distribution of the object to be tracked; and

an object tracking unit that calculates the color distribution of a next image frame collected through the image collecting apparatus, after calculating the color distribution of the object to be tracked, and calculates a posterior probability that each pixel belongs to the object to be tracked in the next image frame based on the calculated color distribution of the next image frame and the color distribution of the object to be tracked to track the object to be tracked.

2. The apparatus for tracking the object according to claim 1, wherein the dynamic area extracting unit extracts the object to be tracked for the image frame collected through the still image collecting apparatus.

3. The apparatus for tracking the object according to claim 1, wherein the dynamic area extracting unit includes:

a color space converting unit that converts the color space of the input image frame into a target color space to which weights for each image channel are given; and

a data processing unit that processes image data of which color space is converted through the color space converting unit to separate the object to be tracked from background.

4. The apparatus for tracking the object according to claim 3, further comprising:

a post-processing unit that removes noise from the result image of the data processing unit to highlight the object to be tracked.

5. The apparatus for tracking the object according to claim 1, wherein the object tracking unit includes a tracking unit that determines the size and center of the object to be tracked using the calculated posterior probabilities.

6. The apparatus for tracking the object according to claim 5, wherein the object tracking unit includes a driving control unit that controls the vision direction of the image collecting apparatus so that the center of the object to be tracked determined through the tracking unit is positioned at the center of the next image frame collected through the image collecting apparatus.

7. The apparatus for tracking the object according to claim 1, wherein the object modeling unit uses a histogram to model the extracted object to be tracked and uses the different number of bins to be used in the histogram for each channel.

8. The apparatus for tracking the object according to claim 1, wherein the dynamic area extracting unit extracts the object to be tracked from a plurality of image frames collected through the still image collecting apparatus, and the object modeling unit performs modeling on the objects to be tracked extracted through the plurality of image frames to calculate the color distribution of the object to be tracked.

9. The apparatus for tracking the object according to claim 8, wherein the object modeling unit models the object to be tracked until the modeling probability of the object to be tracked reaches convergence.

10. The apparatus for tracking the object according to claim 8, wherein the object modeling unit performs modeling on the objects to be tracked extracted through the plurality of image frames and then calculates the color distribution of the object to be tracked using an average value of each modeling probability.

11. A method for tracking an object, comprising:

extracting an object to be tracked from an image frame collected through an image collecting apparatus;

calculating the color distribution of the object to be tracked by modeling the extracted object to be tracked;

calculating the color distribution of the object to be tracked and then calculating the color distribution of a next image frame collected through the image collecting apparatus; and

calculating a posterior probability that each pixel belongs to the object to be tracked in the next image frame based on the calculated color distribution of the next image frame and the color distribution of the object to be tracked to track the object to be tracked.

12. The method for tracking the object as claimed in claim 11, wherein the extracting the object to be tracked from the image frame collected through the image collecting apparatus comprises extracting the object to be tracked for the image frame collected through the still image collecting apparatus.

13. The method for tracking the object as claimed in claim 11, wherein the calculating the posterior probability that each pixel belongs to the object to be tracked in the next image frame based on the calculated color distribution of the next image frame and the color distribution of the object to be tracked to track the object to be tracked includes determining the size and center of the object to be tracked using the calculated posterior probability.

14. The method for tracking the object as claimed in claim 11, wherein the calculating the posterior probability that each pixel belongs to the object to be tracked in the next image frame based on the calculated color distribution of the next image frame and the color distribution of the object to be tracked to track the object to be tracked includes controlling the vision direction of the image collecting apparatus so that the center of the object to be tracked is positioned at the center of the next image frame collected through the image collecting apparatus.

15. The method for tracking the object as claimed in claim 11, wherein the calculating the color distribution of the object to be tracked by modeling the extracted object to be tracked comprises using a histogram to model the extracted object to be tracked and using the different number of bins to be used in the histogram for each channel.

16. The method for tracking the object as claimed in claim 11, wherein the calculating the color distribution of the object to be tracked by modeling the extracted object to be tracked comprises performing modeling on the objects to be tracked extracted through the plurality of image frames to calculate the color distribution of the object to be tracked.

17. The method for tracking the object as claimed in claim 16, wherein the performing modeling on the objects to be tracked extracted through the plurality of image frames comprises modeling the object to be tracked until the modeling probability of the extracted object to be tracked reaches convergence.

18. The method for tracking the object as claimed in claim 16, wherein the performing modeling on the objects to be tracked extracted through the plurality of image frames comprises performing modeling on the objects to be tracked extracted through the plurality of image frames and then calculating the color distribution of the object to be tracked using an average value of each modeling probability.

19. The method for tracking the object as claimed in claim 11, wherein the calculating the posterior probability that each pixel belongs to the object to be tracked in the next image frame based on the calculated color distribution of the next image frame and the color distribution of the object to be tracked to track the object to be tracked includes:

determining whether the object to be tracked exist in the next image frame using the calculated posterior probabilities;

when the object to be tracked does not exist in the next image frame, zoom-out controlling the image collecting apparatus at a predetermined ratio; and

determining whether the object to be tracked exist in the next image frame using the image zoom out collecting apparatus at a predetermined ratio.