Methods and systems for creating a hierarchical appearance model

A method for identifying a suspicious object from a pool of objects, wherein each object in the pool has a uniform hierarchical appearance model, the method comprising:

• receiving an image of the suspicious object;
• creating a hierarchical appearance model of the suspicious object from the image of the suspicious object, the hierarchical appearance model of the suspicious object having a plurality of layers, each layer including one or more nodes, wherein the nodes in each layer contain information of the suspicious object with a corresponding level of detail, and wherein the nodes in different layers of the hierarchical appearance model of the suspicious object correspond to different levels of detail;
• and
• comparing the hierarchical appearance model of the suspicious object with the uniform hierarchical appearance models of the objects in the pool.

A surveillance system, comprising:

• at least one camera for generating at least one image of each of a plurality of objects in a pool and for generating an image of a suspicious object;
• and
• a computer for creating a uniform hierarchical appearance model of each of the objects in the pool from the at least one image of the object, for creating a hierarchical appearance model of the suspicious object from the image of the suspicious object, and for comparing the hierarchical appearance model of the suspicious object with the uniform hierarchical appearance models of the objects in the pool,
• wherein each of the uniform hierarchical appearance models of the objects in the pool and the hierarchical appearance model of the suspicious object has a plurality of layers, each layer including one or more nodes, wherein the nodes in each layer contain information of the respective object with a corresponding level of detail, and wherein the nodes in different layers correspond to different levels of detail.