Shape-based object recognition in videos using 3D synthetic object models

In this paper we address the problem of recognizing moving objects in videos by utilizing synthetic 3D models. We use only the silhouette space of the synthetic models making thus our approach independent of appearance. To deal with the decrease in discriminability in the absence of appearance, we align sequences of object masks from video frames to paths in silhouette space. We extract object silhouettes from video by an integration of feature tracking, motion grouping of tracks, and co-segmentation of successive frames. Subsequently, the object masks from the video are matched to 3D model silhouettes in a robust matching and alignment phase. The result is a matching score for every 3D model to the video, along with a pose alignment of the model to the video. Promising experimental results indicate that a purely shape-based matching scheme driven by synthetic 3D models can be successfully applied for object recognition in videos.