Background removal system for object movies

In this paper, we present an interactive system for removing the backgrounds from object movies. Our system automatically extracts initial segmentation results based on observed characteristics of object movies. These characteristics are (1) the distribution of background color is Gaussian, (2) the color difference between foreground and background is distinct, and (3) the background of the images set with the same tilt angle is static. The user can modify misclassified pixels in only a few frames. The corrected result is propagated to all frames through spatial and temporal coherence. After user manipulation, the alpha estimation process is performed to obtain the alpha values for pixels that are composed of both background and foreground. Our automatic process for obtaining initial segmentation results extracts most foreground and background pixels, and thus more accurate results are obtained with little user intervention.