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 classification step of classifying the visual elements in the current image as the foreground or the background according to the current image and the background image in the background model;
• a similarity measure determination step of determining similarity measures between groups in the current image and groups in the background model, wherein visual elements in the groups in the current image are the visual elements in the current image which are classified as the foreground in the classification step, wherein visual elements in the groups in the background model are the visual elements whose classification information is the foreground, and wherein the visual elements in the groups in the background model are the visual elements which neighbour to corresponding portions of the visual elements in the groups in the current image;
• and
• an identification step of identifying whether the visual elements in the current image which are classified as the foreground in the classification step are falsely classified or not according to the 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 identify 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 classification unit configured to classify the visual elements in the current image as the foreground or the background according to the current image and the background image in the background model;
• a similarity measure determination unit configured to determine similarity measures between groups in the current image and groups in the background model, wherein visual elements in the groups in the current image are the visual elements in the current image which are classified as the foreground by the classification unit, wherein visual elements in the groups in the background model are the visual elements whose classification information is the foreground, and wherein the visual elements in the groups in the background model are the visual elements which neighbour to corresponding portions of the visual elements in the groups in the current image;
• and
• an identification unit configured to identify whether the visual elements in the current image which are classified as the foreground by the classification unit are falsely classified or not according to the 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.