Image transformation for object tracking in high-resolution video

We propose a new method for warping high-resolution images to efficiently track objects on the ground plane in real time. Recently, the emergence of high resolution video cameras (> 5 megapixels) has enabled surveillance over a much larger area using only a single camera. However, real-time processing of high resolution video for automatic detection and tracking of multiple targets is a challenge. When the surveillance camera covers greater depth of ground regions, due to perspective effect, the image size of a target varies significantly depending on the distance between the camera and the target. In this study, we propose a framework to transform high resolution images into warped images using a plane homography to make the target size uniform regardless of the position. The method not only reduces the number of pixels to be processed for speed-up, but also improves the tracking performance. We provide experimental results on object tracking in high-resolution maritime videos to demonstrate the validity of our method.