A Combined Optical Flow and Graph Cut Approach for Foreground Extraction in Videoconference Applications

Mihai Făgădar-Cosma
Alcatel-Lucent Bell N.V.
Copernicuslaan 50, 2018 Antwerp, Belgium
“Politehnica” University of Timişoara, Department of Computer Science
Bd. Vasile Pârvan 2, 300223 Timişoara, ROMANIA

Marwen Nouri
Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs, Centre de Villarceaux
Route de Villejust, 91620 Nozay, FRANCE

Vladimir-Ioan Creţu
“Politehnica” University of Timişoara, Department of Computer Science
Bd. Vasile Pârvan 2, 300223 Timişoara, ROMANIA

Mihai Victor Micea
“Politehnica” University of Timişoara, Department of Computer Science
Bd. Vasile Pârvan 2, 300223 Timişoara, ROMANIA

Abstract:

Immersive videoconferences have added a new dimension to remote collaboration by bringing participants together in a common virtual space. To achieve this, the conferencing system must extract in real-time the foreground from each incoming video stream and translate it into the shared virtual space. The method presented in this paper differentiates itself in the sense that no prior training or assumptions on the video content are used during foreground extraction. A temporally coherent mask is created based on motion cues obtained from the video stream and is used to provide a set of hard constraints. Based on these constraints, a graph cut algorithm is employed to produce the pixel-accurate foreground segmentation. The obtained results are evaluated using a state-of-the-art perceptual metric to provide an objective assessment of the method accuracy and reliability. Furthermore, the presented approach makes use of parallel execution in order to achieve real-time processing capabilities.

Keywords:

Foreground extraction, videoconference, optical flow, graph cut, motion segmentation, real-time video processing.

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CITE THIS PAPER AS:
Mihai FĂGĂDAR-COSMA, Marwen NOURI, Vladimir-Ioan CREŢU, Mihai Victor MICEA, A Combined Optical Flow and Graph Cut Approach for Foreground Extraction in Videoconference Applications, Studies in Informatics and Control, ISSN 1220-1766, vol. 21 (4), pp. 413-422, 2012. https://doi.org/10.24846/v21i4y201207