Cutlery
Reexamination Certificate
1998-05-15
2002-05-28
Bella, Matthew C. (Department: 2621)
Cutlery
C348S169000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06394557
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to the field of image processing, computer vision, and computer graphical user interfaces. In particular, the present invention discloses a video image based tracking system that allows a computer to identify and track the location of a moving object within a sequence of video images.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
There are many applications of object tracking in video images. For example, a security system can be created that tracks people that enter a video image. A user interface can be created wherein a computer tracks the gestures and movements of a person in order to control some activity.
However, traditional object tracking systems are computationally expensive and difficult to use. One example of a traditional method of tracking objects in a scene uses object pattern recognition and edge detection. Such methods are very computationally intensive. Furthermore, such systems are notoriously difficult to train and calibrate. The results produced by such methods often contain a significant amount of jitter such that the results must be filtered before they can be used for a practical purpose. This additional filtering adds more computation work that must be performed. It would therefore be desirable to bave a simpler more elegant method of visually tracking a dynamic object.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
A method of tracking a dynamically changing probability distribution is disclosed. The method operates by first calculating a mean location of a probability distribution within a search window. Next, the search window is centered on the calculated mean location and the search window is then resized. Successive iterations of calculating a mean, centering on the mean, and resizing the search window track an object represented by the probability distribution.
Other objects, features, and advantages of present invention will be apparent from the company drawings and from the following detailed description that follows below.
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Bella Matthew C.
Blakely , Sokoloff, Taylor & Zafman LLP
Choobin M B
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