Implementation of disparity information‐based 3D object tracking

AbstractIn this paper, a new 3D object tracking system using the disparity motion vector (DMV) is presented. In the proposed method, the time‐sequential disparity maps are extracted from the sequence of the stereo input image pairs and these disparity maps are used to sequentially estimate the DMV defined as a disparity difference between two consecutive disparity maps Similarly to motion vectors in the conventional video signals, the DMV provides us with motion information of a moving target by showing a relatively large change in the disparity values in the target areas. Accordingly, this DMV helps detect the target area and its location coordinates. Based on these location data of a moving target, the pan/tilt embedded in the stereo camera system can be controlled and consequently achieve real‐time stereo tracking of a moving target. From the results of experiments with 9 frames of the stereo image pairs having 256×256 pixels, it is shown that the proposed DMV‐based stereo object tracking system can track the moving target with a relatively low error ratio of about 3.05 % on average.