Color-based Tracking under Varying Illumination

In this project, we have developed a novel approach for real-time skin segmentation in video sequences. The approach enables reliable skin segmentation despite wide variation in illumination during tracking. An explicit second order Markov model is used to predict evolution of the skin color (HSV) histogram over time. Histograms are dynamically updated based on feedback from the current segmentation and based on predictions of the Markov model. The evolution of the skin color distribution at each frame is parameterized by translation, scaling and rotation in color space. Consequent changes in geometric parameterization of the distribution are propagated by warping and re-sampling the histogram. The parameters of the discrete-time dynamic Markov model are estimated using Maximum Likelihood Estimation, and also evolve over time. Quantitative evaluation of the method has been conducted on labeled ground-truth video sequences taken from popular movies.

• Approach
• Experiments
• Related Publications
  
• Matlab source code
• Labeled Video Sequences Used as Ground Truth in Experiments
• Segmentation Results for Ground Truth Experiments

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Last Modified: April 17, 1998