An active contour model using image flow for tracking a moving object

Abstract

An active contour model was developed as a useful segmenting and tracking tool for rigid or nonrigid objects. Snake, one of the active contour models (ACMs), is designed on the basis of Snake energies. Segmenting and tracking can be executed successfully by the process of energy minimization. The ability to contract is a important process for segmenting objects from images, but the contraction forces of Kass' Snake are dependent on the object's form. In this research, new contraction energy, independent of the object's form, is proposed for the segmentation. Kass' Snake can be applied to the case of small changes between two images because its solutions can be obtained from the basis of variational approach. Furthermore considering the case that the motion is too large to apply image flow energy to tracking. A jump mode was proposed for solving the problem.