A novel robust approach for handling illumination changes in video segmentation

Abstract

In this work we propose a novel algorithm for foreground segmentation in video sequences that achieves better accuracy, while maintaining low complexity and allows real time execution. The proposed algorithm combines selected features from a number of well-established and state of the art algorithms, such as the Gaussian mixture models, the Self Organizing Maps and the illumination sensitive method. The presented methodology is capable of efficiently handling sudden light changes, both from natural and multiple artificial light sources, which may have caused erroneous segmentation for other algorithms. Comparative results are presented utilizing user-defined ground truth segmentation for two different types of indoor video sequences, one of which was obtained by a hemispheric omnidirectional dioptric (fish-eye) camera, with and without illumination changes and the second by a plain camera. The behavior of the algorithm with respect to its controlling parameters is investigated and its computational burden is studied. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.