1 - INTRODUCTION

This project investigates the working of a foreground segmentation algorithm that will be used to extract moving foreground objects from a video. The video will be shot with a standard digital camera in a controlled environment. The resulting video from the extraction process will contain a silhouette that tracks the foreground objectsâ„¢ movements. The objectives for the project are to research a practical algorithm, implement the algorithm, and finally, apply filtering techniques to the extracted foreground to reduce the noises remaining from the segmentation. This extraction process is part of a larger project that will be used as an interactive display. The entire project will combine silhouettes of moving objects and pre-recorded background imageries to create a video artwork. There are a few research papers written for different segmentation approaches and algorithms; however, most algorithms are still not able to achieve a fully noiseless extraction due to lighting and modeling complications. Different segmentation algorithms are still actively being researched and tested. There was an attempt at building a real-time extraction project by a previous EECE 496 student. The resulting video frames were noisy and the time constraint of the student did not allow him to implement a better filtering technique. Unlike the project by the previous student, the new extraction algorithm will not have to run in real-time; therefore, I will start the project from the beginning. The newly built segmentation process will be able to extract foreground objects; also, the accuracy of the process should improve from the previous work. The report will be divided into three major sections. First, the equipment and software used will be discussed and it will be followed by the analysis of the systemâ„¢s 6 design. The performance of the process and the problems faced during the work of the project will be covered last.

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Presented BY:: Benson Huang

Supervisor: Dr. Sidney Fels, Changsong Shen

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- EQUIPMENT AND METHODOLOGY

he equipments used for the project include a digital camera, video editing and compressing software, and a processing tool that will perform the extraction process. The digital camera will be used to take videos of moving foreground objects. Then, the video editing software will compress the video in order for the processing tool to recognize the file format. Lastly, the processing tool will output a video that will show only the shadow of foreground objects. Assumptions for the project may alter the decision for choosing the practical extraction algorithm. There are many different techniques that can extract foregrounds from videos. This project will use a statistical approach that can be applied to videos with random moving objects in the foreground.


read full report
http://hct.ece.ubc.ca/research/shadows/index.html
http://hct.ece.ubc.ca/research/shadows/H...Report.pdf
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/dow...1&type=pdf