Object-based Video Segmentation Technology

Due to the development of streaming media and emerging of content based functionalities in MPEG 4, object based segmentation technology becomes a popular research in video field. Video segmentation provides an easy and efficient way for video retrieval and coding, whereas it is a difficulty issue in computer vision. From shot based to extraction of video object planes (VOPs), video segmentation develops to extract video object(VO). In fact, shot based segmentation is one of the primary steps in the true object based video segmentation. Currently, segmentation technology for content based representation is still premature. This article gives an overview of existing techniques for object based segmentation. The performance, relative merits and limitations of each of the approaches are comprehensively discussed and contrasted. Different from the traditional classification approaches, this paper presents a new view of analyzing the recent research in this area. Some important and advanced video segmentation algorithms are analyzed and compared both in theory and experimental results. According to different information used in those algorithms, they are classified into several classes. This classification criterion is more revelatory and useful to developing new segmentation algorithm. Finally, some existing problems worth discussing and directions need to further research are proposed.