Real-time tracking of moving persons by exploiting spatio-temporal image slices

This paper addresses the problem of analyzing human motion in an image sequence. This is of particular importance for video-surveillance applications. We have developed an original and efficient approach to track the apparent contours of a moving articulated structure, avoiding the use of 3D models. This method exploits spatio-temporal XT-slices from the image sequence volume XYT, where typical trajectory patterns can be associated with articulated motion such as human walking. We reconstruct these trajectories online by introducing an appropriate predictive model while correctly handling occlusion periods. This paradigm can lead to a simple trajectory recognition scheme. Experiments with real-world images depicting human walk or gesture are reported, and obtained results validate the proposed approach.