Object contour tracking using snakes in stereo image sequences

In this paper, we present a snake-based scheme for tracking object contour using disparity information taken from a stereo image sequence with cluttered background. The proposed method is composed of two steps. First, 3D motion of object is estimated and candidate snake points are selected in disparity space. Second, object contour is extracted by using a modified snake algorithm with disparity information. The proposed algorithm can successfully extract the concave contour of objects and track the object contour in complex image. Performance of the proposed algorithm has been verified by simulation.