Method and system for automatic object detection and subsequent object tracking in accordance with the object shape

A method for automatic object detection and subsequent object tracking in digital video systems having at least one camera for recording and transmitting video sequences, said method comprising:

• supplying a video signal from the at least one camera to a control room;
• supplying the video signal from the at least one camera to each of:
• an object detection module;
• and
• an object tracking module;
• processing the video signal in the object detection module using an algorithm based on a Gaussian mixture model to detect one or more objects in the video sequence;
• processing the video signal in the object tracking using Mean-Shift analysis to track one or more objects in the video sequence,
• further processing the video signal in the object detection module using background modeling to improve the removal of shadows from the one or more objects detected in the video sequence,
• generating a binary mask at an output of the object detection module that determines whether a newly identified object is present in the video sequence and creates an asymmetric filter core,
• supplying an output of the binary mask to the object tracking module, and
• initializing an object detection algorithm for shape-adaptive object tracking in the object tracking module, wherein the object detection algorithm for shape adaptive object tracking further comprises a segmentation step that comprises:
• adapting a localized object region as closely as possible to actual object shape,
• making a color segmentation or a Mean shift based color segmentation of the object and its immediate object region,
• classifying as object segments all segments that fall at least 35% to 70% within the immediate object region, and
• categorizing as object segments all segments whose color information falls at least to 35% to 70% within a target model, such that a determination of at least one of object shape or object contour or orientation of the object in space is made, and
• supplying an output of the object tracking module to the control room with the video signal supplied by the at least one camera.