Background maintenance of an image sequence

A computer-readable storage medium having stored and encoded thereon a computer program having computer-executable modules containing computer-executable instructions that are executable by a general-purpose computing device, the computer program, comprising:

• an intersection module that groups pixels in a current frame based on an initial classification of each pixel to form an intersection image;
• a histogram module that calculates a histogram for a property of intersection image pixels to form a boundary of a foreground region;
• and
• a backprojection module that connects pixels within the boundary of the foreground region by comparing a histogram value of each of the pixels within the intersection image to a threshold and including the pixel within the foreground region if the histogram value is greater than the histogram threshold to divide the foreground region from the current frame.

A method of processing an image containing pixels, comprising using a processor to perform the following:

• finding an intersection image within the image using an individual pixel property;
• determining a boundary of a foreground region using the intersection image by calculating a histogram for each pixel in the intersection image;
• and
• filling in the foreground region within the boundary by backprojecting the histogram onto the boundary to segment the foreground region from the image, where backprojecting further comprises using connectivity to determine which pixels to include within the foreground region, and where using connectivity comprises comparing a histogram value of each pixel within the intersection image to a threshold and including the pixel within the foreground region if the histogram value is greater than the histogram threshold.