System for fast, probabilistic skeletal tracking
First Claim
1. In a system including a computing environment coupled to a capture device for capturing state information from a field of view of the capture device, the state information representing a position of a user, a method of estimating state information comprising:
- (a) receiving image data from the field of view;
(b) producing one or more computer models estimating state information by one or more experts, said step of producing one or more computer models based on computing body part proposals from the image data and generating one or more skeletal hypotheses from the body part proposals by a known configuration of how body parts are connected in humans; and
(c) analyzing the one or more computer models produced in said step (b) by one or more methodologies of an arbiter to choose one or more computer models estimated to be the best representation of the state information.
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Abstract
A system and method are disclosed for recognizing and tracking a user'"'"'s skeletal joints with a NUI system. The system includes one or more experts for proposing one or more skeletal hypotheses each representing a user pose within a given frame. Each expert is generally computationally inexpensive. The system further includes an arbiter for resolving the skeletal hypotheses from the experts into a best state estimate for a given frame. The arbiter may score the various skeletal hypotheses based on different methodologies. The one or more skeletal hypotheses resulting in the highest score may be returned as the state estimate for a given frame. It may happen that the experts and arbiter are unable to resolve a single state estimate with a high degree of confidence for a given frame. It is a further goal of the present system to capture any such uncertainty as a factor in how a state estimate is to be used.
216 Citations
19 Claims
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1. In a system including a computing environment coupled to a capture device for capturing state information from a field of view of the capture device, the state information representing a position of a user, a method of estimating state information comprising:
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(a) receiving image data from the field of view; (b) producing one or more computer models estimating state information by one or more experts, said step of producing one or more computer models based on computing body part proposals from the image data and generating one or more skeletal hypotheses from the body part proposals by a known configuration of how body parts are connected in humans; and (c) analyzing the one or more computer models produced in said step (b) by one or more methodologies of an arbiter to choose one or more computer models estimated to be the best representation of the state information. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
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10. A software pipeline for generating a state estimate for a given frame of captured image data, the state estimate representing an estimate of a position of a user within a field of view captured within the image data, comprising:
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a preprocessing routine for receiving the image data, removing a background from the image data, and processing a foreground into one or more body part proposals; one or more experts for receiving information including the one or more body part proposals and generating a plurality of computer models, each computer model representing an estimation of the position of the user in the given frame of captured image data; and an arbiter for receiving the plurality of computer models, scoring the computer models by one or more methodologies which compare the plurality of computer models against depth data from the given frame and/or state estimate data from a prior frame, and outputting at least one computer model estimated by the arbiter to best approximate the position of the user in the frame. - View Dependent Claims (11, 12, 13, 14, 15)
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16. A computer-readable storage medium capable of programming a processor to perform a method tracking body parts of a user captured with a capture device as a user moves within a field of view of the capture device to determine a state estimate of the user'"'"'s position in a current frame of image data captured by the capture device, comprising:
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(a) receiving image data from the capture device; (b) processing the image data received in said step (a) to remove a background and generate body part proposals for images in a foreground; (c) generating a plurality of skeletal hypotheses using at least one of the body part proposals generated in said step (b) and image data from an earlier time, the plurality of skeletal hypotheses defining a probability distribution; (d) selecting one or more skeletal hypotheses as being the most probable state estimates based on the probability distribution, where the probability distribution indicates one or more skeletal hypotheses as the probable state estimate; and (e) indicating that no state estimate is determined for the frame of image data where the probability distribution does not indicate one or more skeletal hypotheses as being probable state estimates. - View Dependent Claims (17, 18, 19)
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Specification