Patent ID: 7903141

Claim:
A method for detecting a scene event in an image sequence, comprising the steps of: (a) generating a reference background image based on a multi-scale invariant analysis, wherein a multi-scale invariant is defined as multiple groups of pixel locations around a pixel location and the contrast between the pixel values of the multiple groups of pixel locations and the pixel value of the pixel location, wherein each group of pixel locations is arranged in a circular configuration with a different radius, (b) capturing an image sequence using an image capturing device, (c) specifying one or a plurality of regions of interest as a plurality of contiguous pixel locations in said image sequence, wherein each pixel location in the region of interest is associated with a classifier for the multi-scale invariant analysis, (d) performing a classification of each pixel location in said plurality of contiguous pixel locations as background or foreground, (e) defining a scene description as one or a plurality of said regions of interest each with its state of occlusion, (f) defining said scene event as a sequence of the scene descriptions occurring over an image subsequence, and (g) processing said image sequence to detect an occurrence of said scene event.