Object recognition system and process for identifying people and objects in an image of a scene

An object recognition system for identifying a person or object in an image of a scene, comprising:

• a general purpose computing device;
• a computer program comprising program modules executable by the computing device, wherein the computing device is directed by the program modules of the computer program to,
• (a) create model histograms of people and objects that it is desired to identify in said image of the scene,
• (b) segment said image to extract regions which correspond to at least one person or object whose identity it is desired to determine,
• (c) compute a histogram for each of region extracted from the image,
• (d) for each histogram associated with an extracted region, respectively assess the degree of similarity between the extracted region histogram and each of said model histograms,
• (e) designate each extracted region having a histogram that exhibits a degree of similarity to one of the model histograms which exceeds a prescribed threshold as corresponding to the person or object associated with that model histogram, and
• (f) store the histogram computed for any extracted region of the image that is designated as corresponding to a person or object associated with a model histogram as an additional model histogram associated with that person or object.

A computer-readable memory for causing a computer to perform an object recognition procedure for identifying a person or object in an image of a scene, comprising:

• a general purpose computing device;
• a computer program comprising program modules executable by the computing device, wherein the computing device is directed by the program modules of the computer program to,
• (a) create model histograms of people and objects that it is desired to identify in said image of the scene,
• (b) segment said image to extract regions which correspond to at least one person or object whose identity it is desired to determine,
• (c) compute a histogram for each of region extracted from the image,
• (d) for each histogram associated with an extracted region, respectively assess the degree of similarity between the extracted region histogram and each of said model histograms,
• (e) designate each extracted region having a histogram that exhibits a degree of similarity to one of the model histograms which exceeds a prescribed threshold as corresponding to the person or object associated with that model histogram, and
• (f) store the histogram computed for any extracted region of the image that is designated as corresponding to a person or object associated with a model histogram as an additional model histogram associated with that person or object.

A computer-implemented process for identifying a person or object in an image of a scene, said process comprising using a computer to perform the following process actions:

• creating model histograms of people and objects that it is desired to identify in said image of the scene;
• segmenting said image to extract regions which correspond to at least one person or object whose identity it is desired to determine;
• for each region extracted from the image,
• computing a histogram for the extracted region,
• respectively assessing the degree of similarity between the extracted region histogram and at least some of said model histograms, and
• designating each extracted region having a histogram that exhibits a degree of similarity to a one of the model histograms which exceeds a prescribed threshold as corresponding to the person or object associated with that model histogram;
• and
• storing the histogram computed for any extracted region of the image that is designated as corresponding to a person or object associated with a model histogram as an additional model histogram associated with that person or object.