<title>Extraction of moving objects for content-based video coding</title>

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper considers video object plane (VOP) segmentation for the content-based video coding standard MPEG-4. To provide multimedia applications with new functionalities, such as content-based interactivity and scalability,the new video coding standard MPEG-4 relies on a content-based representation. To take advantage of thesefunctionalities, a prior decomposition of sequences into semantically meaningful, physical objects is required. We formulate this problem as one of separating foreground objects from the background based on motion information. For the object of interest, a two-dimensional binary model is derived and tracked throughout the sequence. The model points consist of edge pixels detected by the Canny operator. To accommodate rotation and changes in shape of the tracked object, the model is updated every frame. These binary models then guide the actual VOP extraction. Due to the excellent edge localization properties of the Canny operator, the resulting VOP contours are very accurate.