Method for detecting a moving object in motion video and apparatus

• US 7,394,852 B2
• Filed: 09/10/2004
• Issued: 07/01/2008
• 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): Rao; Anand S.
• Application Number:
  US10/937,859
• Publication Number:
  US 20050031041A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,390 Days
• Field of Search: 37524001-24029
• 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 apparatus comprising:

a determination unit configured to determine whether a video signal corresponding to a unit area represents a background area or a non-background area, the video signal being part of a reconstructed video signal acquired by a video decoder which decodes encoded data obtained by compression-encoding a motion video signal;

a detection unit configured to detect adjacent unit areas representing the non-background area using a determination result of the determination unit for each unit area to determine the adjacent unit areas as an area of a moving object;

a first calculator which computes a cross correlation value between a current frame of the reconstructed video signal and a video signal preceding by one frame every unit area;

a storage unit configured to store a background video signal corresponding to a background component of the reconstructed video; and

a second calculator which computes a second cross correlation value between the current frame of the reconstructed video signal and the background video signal stored in the storage unit every unit area;

wherein the determining unit includes a section which determines whether the video signal in the unit area is a background area or a non-background area on the basis of encoding mode information obtained from the video decoder section, the first cross correlation value and the second cross correlation value.

2. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the determination unit includes a unit configured to determine whether an interest macro block corresponding to the unit area is a background macro block or a non-background macro block every frame, and the detection unit includes a unit configured to detect the moving object on the basis of a determination result as the background area;

wherein the determination unit includes,

a first cross correlation calculator which computes a first cross correlation value between a local decoded picture signal and a reference picture signal of a frame preceding by one frame,

a second cross correlation calculator which computes a second cross correlation value between the local decoded picture signal and a background picture signal preceding by one frame, and

a determination device configured to determine a background or a non-background every macro block in the frame on the basis of decoded mode information, the first cross correlation value, and the second cross correlation value.

3. The apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the determination device includes a device configured to determine the interest macro block as a background macro block when the first cross correlation value is larger than a first threshold.

4. The apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the determination device includes a device configured to determine 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.