Patent ID: 7756296

Claim:
A computer implemented method for tracking an object in a sequence of frames of a video, comprising the steps of: providing a set of tracking modules; buffering frames of a video in a memory buffer; first tracking an object in the buffered frames forward in time using a selected one of the plurality of tracking module second tracking the object in the buffered frames backward in time using the selected tracking module; and determining a tracking error from the first tracking and the second tracking, and if the tracking error is less than a predetermined threshold, then buffering additional frames in the memory buffer and repeating the first tracking, the second tracking and the determining steps, and otherwise if the error is greater than the predetermined threshold, then selecting a different tracking module and repeating the first tracking, the second tracking and the determining steps, wherein each tracking module has an associated complexity, and wherein the set of tracking modules is selected from a group comprising a mean-shift tracker, a particle filter tracker, a covariance tracker, a Kalman filter tracker, an ensemble tracker, an exhaustive search tracker, and an online classifier tracker.