Moving rigid objects segmentation in 3D dynamic traffic scenes using a stereovision system

This paper proposes a novel method for detecting the moving vehicles in dynamic urban traffic scenes using a stereo camera. Relying on the fact that a set of feature points on a rigid 3D scene object are staying in a rigid 3D configuration, we propose to compute the relative motion between the camera and a moving object with an algorithm that follows from the visual odometry based motion estimation methods. Subtracting the camera motion we obtain the absolute object motion. Additionally we create a compact representation of the scene using superpixels computed from intensity and depth information. A graph-like structure is built, having superpixels as nodes and indicating neighboring relationships between adjacent superpixels. Objects are segmented using a fast region growing algorithm that considers as seeds the features used to compute the object motion.