Patent ID: 8594425

Claim:
A method for processing data, comprising: receiving a temporal sequence of depth maps of a scene containing a stationary background and one or more moving foreground objects that conceal a part of the background, the depth maps comprising a matrix of pixels, at least some of which have respective pixel depth values and correspond to respective locations in the scene; and using a digital processor, constructing a background model representing the stationary background of the scene by saving, at each pixel, a maximum depth value found at the pixel over the sequence of the depth maps, such that at least a portion of the stationary background that is concealed by the moving foreground objects in a first map in the sequence is added to the background model by finding greater depth values at the corresponding pixels in at least a second depth map in the sequence in which the portion of the stationary background is no longer concealed due to motion of at least one of the foreground objects over the sequence.