Fast superpixels for video analysis

The computational cost of video and motion analysis can be dramatically reduced by over-segmenting each frame of video into “superpixels”. But most superpixel algorithms are themselves computationally expensive, and are thus inappropriate for use with real-time video. This paper advocates and analyzes the use of superpixels derived from minimum-cost paths that can be computed by dynamic programming. It is shown that superpixels can be computed comfortably in real time using such methods (30–40 times faster than the most efficient alternative), while sacrificing about 3% in the accuracy of the superpixels. The efficacy of the approach is demonstrated with a simple video analysis application.