A framework for fully automatic moving video-object segmentation based on graph partitioning and object tracking

We present a novel fully automatic moving video-object extraction algorithm based on graph partitioning and object tracking. A sophisticated graph partitioning algorithm is first used to (intra-frame) segment the moving video objects (VOs) of a specific (key) frame without any prior knowledge of segmentation results of previous frame(s). Once the VOs for this key frame are extracted, the (inter-frame) segmentation of VOs of subsequent frames is accomplished by tracking the segmented objects of consecutive frames by means of motion projection and modified histogram back-projection. To avoid significant error propagation caused by the (inter-frame) object tracking, a new key frame has to be identified periodically, based on a criterion in terms of camera motion parameters. Simulation results illustrate that the proposed algorithm gives comparable results to semi-automatic methods introduced in the literature.