A framework for interactive video sequence segmentation based on multiple features

In this paper, a scheme for interactive video segmentation is presented. A key feature of the system is the distinction between two levels of segmentation, namely Region and Object Segmentation. Regions are homogeneous areas of the images, which are extracted automatically by the computer. Semantically meaningful objects are obtained through user interaction by grouping of regions, according to application specifications. This splitting relieves the computer of a fully semantic understanding of a scene, and allows a higher level of flexibility. The extraction of regions is based on the multidimensional analysis of several image features by a spatially constrained Fuzzy C-Means algorithm. The local level of reliability of the different features is taken into account in order to adaptively weight the contribution of each feature to the segmentation process. Results about the extraction of regions as well as about the tracking of spatio-temporal objects are presented.