Method for detecting a moving object in motion video and apparatus therefor

• US 6,876,701 B1
• Filed: 09/01/2000
• Issued: 04/05/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 09/02/1999
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba (Toshiba Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba (Toshiba Corporation)
• Inventors: Kobayashi, Hiroyuki, Chujoh, Takeshi, Kikuchi, Yoshihiro, Hayashi, Toshifumi, Sakuma, Akira
• Primary Examiner(s): Kelley, Chris
• Assistant Examiner(s): CZEKAJ, DAVID J
• Application Number:
  US09/654,871
• Time in Patent Office: 1,677 Days
• Field of Search: 37524001-24009, 37524023-24026, 3752401-24019
• US Class Current: 375/240.08
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/10016 Video; Image sequence
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/20021 Dividing image into blocks, subimages or windows
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/254 involving subtraction of images

Abstract

An apparatus for detecting a moving object in motion video comprises a macro-block determining section for determining the background/non-background of each macro-block of a reconstructed video signal from a video decoder section which decodes encoded data obtained by compression-encoding a motion video signal, a moving object determining section for determining an area of the moving object from the result of the determination on the background/non-background, and a moving object combination display for displaying information indicating the area of the moving object on a display screen for the reconstructed video signal. The macro-block determining section determines if a macro-block represents a background area or a non-background area, based on mode information from the video decoder section and a cross correlation value between a present frame of the reconstructed video signal and a signal of a frame preceding the present frame by one frame, obtained by a first cross correlation calculator, and a cross correlation value between the present frame of the reconstructed video signal and a background video signal stored in a background memory, obtained by a second cross correlation calculator.

Claims

1. A video moving object detecting method comprising the steps of:

a. determining whether a video signal in a predetermined unit area represents a background area or a non-background area from a reconstructed video signal acquired by decoding encoded data obtained by compression-encoding a motion video signal, including determining whether an interest macro block used as a unit area is a background macro block corresponding to the background area or a non-background macro block corresponding to the non-background area every frame; and

b. detecting adjacent unit areas representing the non-background area using a determination result of the step a to determine the adjacent unit areas as an area of a moving object, including detecting adjacent interest macro blocks representing the non-background macro block as the area of the moving object;

wherein the step a includes determining a background or a non-background every macro block in the frame on the basis of decoded mode information, a first cross correlation value between a local decoded picture signal and a reference picture signal of a frame preceding by one frame, and a second cross correlation value between the local decoded picture signal and a background picture signal preceding by one frame.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the step a includes determining the interest macro block as a background macro block when the first cross correlation value is larger than a first threshold.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein the step a includes determining the interest macro block as a non-background macro block when the second cross correlation value is larger than a second threshold, and as a background macro block when the second cross correlation value is not more than the second threshold.