Image processing apparatus and method and monitoring system

An image processing method, comprising:

• an acquisition step of acquiring a current image from an inputted video and a background model which comprises a background image and classification information of visual elements, wherein the classification information of the visual elements comprises foreground and background;
• a similarity measure determination step of determining first similarity measures between visual elements in the current image and the visual elements in the background model, wherein the visual elements in the background model are the visual elements whose classification information is the background, and wherein the visual elements in the background model are the visual elements which neighbour to corresponding portions of the visual elements in the current image;
• and
• a classification step of classifying the visual elements in the current image as the foreground or the background according to the current image, the background image in the background model and the first similarity measures determined in the similarity measure determination step.

A monitoring system, comprising:

• an acquiring device configured to acquire a video;
• an image processing apparatus configured to classify visual elements in images of the acquired video as foreground or background, the image processing apparatus comprising:
• an acquisition unit configured to acquire a current image from an inputted video and a background model which comprises a background image and classification information of visual elements, wherein the classification information of the visual elements comprises foreground and background;
• a similarity measure determination unit configured to determine first similarity measures between visual elements in the current image and the visual elements in the background model, wherein the visual elements in the background model are the visual elements whose classification information is the background, and wherein the visual elements in the background model are the visual elements which neighbour to corresponding portions of the visual elements in the current image;
• and
• a classification unit configured to classify the visual elements in the current image as the foreground or the background according to the current image, the background image in the background model and the first similarity measures determined by the similarity measure determination unit;
• and
• a storage device configured to store the acquired video and processing results determined by the image processing apparatus.