Video-based real-time measurement for human body height

Abstract

Height measurement for a moving human body is a hard task for human body estimation. We propose a novel algorithm for real-time human height measurement without knowing any camera parameter, just having a vertical reference height. As contrasted with the previous research methods in the context of camera calibration, the studied algorithm reduces the complexity of user operations and the economy cost. First, three or more pairs of top-points and bottom-points are extracted by detecting the moving human body to solve the vertical vanishing point and the horizontal vanishing line. Then, the height of the moving human body on ground plane or stepped plane is obtained using the solved vanishing point, the vanishing line, and a given reference height. Considering the importance of the vanishing point and the vanishing line and the sensitivity of both to noise, an optimal approach is adopted. Finally, we show the optimal number and position of the human body in a camera field. Both computer simulation and real testing data validate the robustness and the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.