Automatic Human Body Tracking and Modeling from Monocular Video Sequences

In this paper we developed a system for automated human body tracking and modeling based on a monocular camera. In this system, eleven joint points including head, shoulder, hip, elbows, knees, hands and feet are extracted separately to build a 2D human body model. The head is extracted by analyzing negative minimum curvature (NMC) points on a parameterized silhouette. The torso, along with its angle and size, is determined by integrating multiple frame information with connectivity constraint. Hands and feet can be identified correctly based on a modified star skeleton approach and the nearest-neighbor tracking mechanism. The rest of joint points can also be located by taking advantage of the connectivity constraints. A successful construction of the proposed human body modeling will pave a critical foundation for further intelligent analysis in many applications, such as automated video surveillance system or systematic video understanding.