Patent ID: 8488839

Claim:
A non-transitory computer usable medium having computer readable program code embodied therein for extracting objects from a video, the computer readable program code including: computer readable program code for causing the computer to identify regions of a selected frame of the video appropriate for tracking movement of one or more salient objects appearing in the video; computer readable program code for causing the computer to track identified regions across frames subsequent to said selected frame of the video; computer readable program code for causing the computer to calculate motions of the identified regions including reacquiring tracking of a previously identified salient object for which tracking had been lost; computer readable program code for causing the computer to identify new regions for tracking; computer readable program code for causing the computer to collect tracking information related to the movement of the salient objects into one or more object-related tubes, each tube comprising a starting frame for which tracking of a salient object began though an ending frame at which tracking is terminated; and the code identifying common salient objects to join corresponding object-related tubes; computer readable program code for causing the computer to assign a weight to each object-related tube; computer readable program code for causing the computer to receive search criteria specifying a target object and identifying videos having object related tubes satisfying the search criteria; and computer readable program code for causing the computer to display videos having object-related tubes that match the target object and the corresponding weight associated with the target object.