A DSP-based real time contour tracking system

In this paper the real-time implementation of an automatic contour tracking procedure is presented. If a rough contour of the desired structure is available on the first frame of a sequence, the contours on the subsequent frames are automatically outlined. The mass center of the first-order absolute moment operator is used to locate the contour of interest on every frame. The contour tracking procedure was implemented on an integrated software/hardware environment based on the interaction of a PC and a DSP processor (TMS320C80). Standard PAL images at 25 frame/s were used as an input signal; the contour was computed in real time and was then drawn on the images and displayed on a VGA monitor. The results are illustrated both on clinical images recorded on a SVHS videocassette and on images of a test object acquired by means of a video camera.