Human extraction from a sequence of depth images using segmentation and foreground detection

Abstract

This paper investigates on an approach of how to extract and track multiple subjects from a sequence of depth images. The Kinect camera is used to obtain a depth image revealing the depth information of a scene. Our proposed system includes the object clustering module to segment different isolated regions correspondent to objects in a depth image and foreground detection module to find moving regions from a sequence of frames. The combination of the two modules let us know which object is moving within a sequence of frames to locate a human subject. In order to extract the depth silhouettes of multiple subjects during time, we propose the use of matching algorithm between two consecutive frames to track their movements. We evaluate the algorithm with a long sequence of frames within a complex environment containing backgrounds with furniture and show how the algorithm is able to precisely extract and separate different human subjects with a fast processing speed. Therefore, the proposed approach is suitable for widely practical applications working with human activity recognition, human pose estimation and human tracking from depth images.