Patent ID: 7167519

Claim:
An apparatus for video object generation and selective encoding, the apparatus comprising: a detection module for detecting a first object in at least one image frame of a series of image frames, wherein the detection module detects the first object by initializing a plurality of regions in the at least one image frame, for each initialization computes a degree of similarity between a model and a candidate object in the at least one image frame, and applies an iterative comparative procedure to the degrees of similarity computed, the iterations being based on a gradient vector to shift the location of candidate object in the at least one frame, to derive as the location of the candidate object in the at least one frame that location which has characteristics most similar to the characteristics of the model; a tracking module for tracking the first object in successive image frames of the series of image frames and segmenting the first object from a background, the background being a second object; and an encoder for encoding the first and second objects to be transmitted to a receiver, wherein the first object is compressed at a high compression rate and the second object is compressed at a low compression rate.