A video segmentation algorithm for hierarchical object representations and its implementation

This paper describes a segmentation algorithm for generating hierarchical object representations of images and image sequences. Starting from an object model, we describe the structure of the corresponding segmentation algorithm including all analysis methods applied. Besides the well-known color and motion analysis, we also show how to utilize shape information. Furthermore, we discuss the tradeoff between reducing the computational complexity and the quality of the segmentation results. Last, we present the implementation concept for our analysis model, which uses a special toolbox model. The toolbox provides a set of addressing schemes that are needed by low-level video processing tools. The low-level tools are functions that apply a single operation to all pixels in one frame. Using these addressing functions makes it easy to implement new video processing tools, which, when combined, form new analysis methods. The toolbox exists in C-code and is partially transferred into VHDL.