Patent ID: 7190809

Claim:
A method, comprising: retrieving a plurality of images from a location that is substantially stationary relative to a scene, each image of the plurality of images of said scene comprising a plurality of pixels; obtaining a background model of said scene, wherein obtaining the background model comprises determining at least one probability distribution corresponding to pixels of each image of the plurality of images, the step of determining performed by using a model wherein at least some pixels in each image of the plurality of images are modeled as being dependent on other pixels, further wherein said background model comprises (i) a term representing a probability of a global state of the scene and (ii) a term representing a probability of pixel appearances conditioned to the global state of the scene, wherein the global state of the scene is other than a global motion state of the scene; and providing two indications in said background model for moving objects, a first indication for objects that typically move independently relative to said scene and a second indication for objects that are typically stationary relative to said scene, wherein the background model further comprises an object classification process that modifies probability tables for relevant pixels of an image of the plurality of images of the background model to contain the second indication.