Segmentation and tracking of multiple objects in video sequences

This paper describes a system that produces an object-based representation of a video shots composed by a background (still) mosaic and moving objects. Segmentation of moving objects is based on ego-motion compensation and on background modelling using tools from robust statistics. Region matching is carried out by an algorithm that operates on the Mahalanobis distance between region descriptors in two subsequent frames and uses Singular Value Decomposition to compute a set of correspondences satisfying both the principle of proximity and the principle of exclusion. The sequence is represented as a layered graph, and specific techniques are introduced to cope with crossing and occlusions.