The goal of this article is to review the state-of-the-art tracking methods, classify them into different categories, and identify new trends. Object tracking, in general, is a challenging problem. Difficulties in tracking objects can arise due to abrupt object motion, changing appearance patterns of both the object and the scene, nonrigid object structures, object-to-object and object-to-scene occlusions, and camera motion. Tracking is usually performed in the context of higher-level applications that require the location and/or shape of the object in every frame. Typically, assumptions are made to constrain the tracking problem in the context of a particular application. In this survey, we categorize the tracking methods on the basis of the object and motion representations used, provide detailed descriptions of representative methods in each category, and examine their pros and cons. Moreover, we discuss the important issues related to tracking including the use of appropriate image features, selection of motion models, and detection of objects.

/pdf/object-tracking-a-survey-3706dclxb5.pdf

Object tracking: A survey

A new approach toward target representation and localization, the central component in visual tracking of nonrigid objects, is proposed. The feature histogram-based target representations are regularized by spatial masking with an isotropic kernel. The masking induces spatially-smooth similarity functions suitable for gradient-based optimization, hence, the target localization problem can be formulated using the basin of attraction of the local maxima. We employ a metric derived from the Bhattacharyya coefficient as similarity measure, and use the mean shift procedure to perform the optimization. In the presented tracking examples, the new method successfully coped with camera motion, partial occlusions, clutter, and target scale variations. Integration with motion filters and data association techniques is also discussed. We describe only a few of the potential applications: exploitation of background information, Kalman tracking using motion models, and face tracking.

/pdf/kernel-based-object-tracking-2pj4gwhvr7.pdf

Kernel-based object tracking

Local space-time features capture local events in video and can be adapted to the size, the frequency and the velocity of moving patterns. In this paper, we demonstrate how such features can be used for recognizing complex motion patterns. We construct video representations in terms of local space-time features and integrate such representations with SVM classification schemes for recognition. For the purpose of evaluation we introduce a new video database containing 2391 sequences of six human actions performed by 25 people in four different scenarios. The presented results of action recognition justify the proposed method and demonstrate its advantage compared to other relative approaches for action recognition.

https://www.irisa.fr/vista/Papers/2004_icpr_schuldt.pdf

Recognizing human actions: a local SVM approach

A view-based approach to the representation and recognition of human movement is presented. The basis of the representation is a temporal template-a static vector-image where the vector value at each point is a function of the motion properties at the corresponding spatial location in an image sequence. Using aerobics exercises as a test domain, we explore the representational power of a simple, two component version of the templates: The first value is a binary value indicating the presence of motion and the second value is a function of the recency of motion in a sequence. We then develop a recognition method matching temporal templates against stored instances of views of known actions. The method automatically performs temporal segmentation, is invariant to linear changes in speed, and runs in real-time on standard platforms.

/pdf/the-recognition-of-human-movement-using-temporal-templates-5e8eze1cen.pdf

The recognition of human movement using temporal templates

https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~illah/PAPERS/socialroboticssurvey.pdf

A survey of socially interactive robots

Human motion analysis is receiving increasing attention from computer vision researchers. This interest is motivated by a wide spectrum of applications, such as athletic performance analysis, surveillance, man-machine interfaces, content-based image storage and retrieval, and video conferencing. The paper gives an overview of the various tasks involved in motion analysis of the human body. The authors focus on three major areas related to interpreting human motion: 1) motion analysis involving human body parts, 2) tracking of human motion using single or multiple cameras, and 3) recognizing human activities from image sequences. Motion analysis of human body parts involves the low-level segmentation of the human body into segments connected by joints, and recovers the 3D structure of the human body using its 2D projections over a sequence of images. Tracking human motion using a single or multiple camera focuses on higher-level processing, in which moving humans are tracked without identifying specific parts of the body structure. After successfully matching the moving human image from one frame to another in image sequences, understanding the human movements or activities comes naturally, which leads to a discussion of recognizing human activities. The review is illustrated by examples.

Human motion analysis: a review

Human Motion Analysis

We present an end-to-end system for augmented and virtual reality telepresence, called Holoportation. Our system demonstrates high-quality, real-time 3D reconstructions of an entire space, including people, furniture and objects, using a set of new depth cameras. These 3D models can also be transmitted in real-time to remote users. This allows users wearing virtual or augmented reality displays to see, hear and interact with remote participants in 3D, almost as if they were present in the same physical space. From an audio-visual perspective, communicating and interacting with remote users edges closer to face-to-face communication. This paper describes the Holoportation technical system in full, its key interactive capabilities, the application scenarios it enables, and an initial qualitative study of using this new communication medium.

Holoportation: Virtual 3D Teleportation in Real-time

This paper presents a comprehensive framework for tracking coarse human models from sequences of synchronized monocular grayscale images in multiple camera coordinates. It demonstrates the feasibility of an end-to-end person tracking system using a unique combination of motion analysis on 3D geometry in different camera coordinates and other existing techniques in motion detection, segmentation, and pattern recognition. The system starts with tracking from a single camera view. When the system predicts that the active camera will no longer have a good view of the subject of interest, tracking will be switched to another camera which provides a better view and requires the least switching to continue tracking. The nonrigidity of the human body is addressed by matching points of the middle line of the human image, spatially and temporally, using Bayesian classification schemes. Multivariate normal distributions are employed to model class-conditional densities of the features for tracking, such as location, intensity, and geometric features. Limited degrees of occlusion are tolerated within the system. Experimental results using a prototype system are presented and the performance of the algorithm is evaluated to demonstrate its feasibility for real time applications.

Tracking human motion in structured environments using a distributed-camera system

Presents a framework for tracking human motion in an indoor environment from sequences of monocular grayscale images obtained from multiple fixed cameras. Multivariate Gaussian models are applied to find the most likely matches of human subjects between consecutive frames taken by cameras mounted in various locations. Experimental results from real data show the robustness of the algorithm and its potential for real time applications.

/pdf/tracking-human-motion-using-multiple-cameras-3akvtnqj5q.pdf

Qin Cai

Papers

Human motion analysis: a review

Human Motion Analysis

Holoportation: Virtual 3D Teleportation in Real-time

Tracking human motion in structured environments using a distributed-camera system

Tracking human motion using multiple cameras