Automatic spatio-temporal video sequence segmentation

An automatic spatio-temporal video sequence segmentation algorithm is proposed. To address this very difficult computer vision problem, several novel algorithms have been developed which use both spatial and temporal information. First, a novel temporal segmentation algorithm is developed based on our previous work in motion estimation. Second, an iterative split-and-merge spatial segmentation scheme is proposed with an initial segmentation being provided by a recursive conditioned dilation operation merging pixels into homogeneous regions, followed by an iterative refinement algorithm to obtain the final spatial segmentation. Third, temporal and spatial segmentation are linked to form spatio-temporal segmentation with the shape of each object being simplified by a morphological close-opening operation to obtain the final segmentation. Performance evaluation shows that the developed algorithm can successfully segment moving objects without any human intervention.