Patent Document ID: 20110267344
Application ID: 13096488
Patent Flag: 0

Claim One:
1. A computer-implemented method for estimating a pose of an articulated object model ( 4 ), wherein the articulated object model ( 4 ) is a computer based 3D model ( 1 ) of a real world object ( 14 ) observed by one or more source cameras ( 9 ), and the articulated object model ( 4 ) represents a plurality of joints ( 2 ) and of links ( 3 ) that link the joints ( 2 ), and wherein the pose of the articulated object model ( 4 ) is defined by the spatial location of the joints ( 2 ), the method comprising the steps of obtaining at least one source image ( 10 ) from a video stream comprising a view of the real world object ( 14 ) recorded by a source camera ( 9 ); processing the at least one source image ( 10 ) to extract a corresponding source image segment ( 13 ) comprising the view of the real world object ( 14 ) separated from the image background; maintaining, in a database in computer readable form, a set of reference silhouettes, each reference silhouette being associated with an articulated object model ( 4 ) and with a particular reference pose of this articulated object model ( 4 ); comparing the at least one source image segment ( 13 ) to the reference silhouettes and selecting a predetermined number of reference silhouettes by taking into account, for each reference silhouette, a matching error that indicates how closely the reference silhouette matches the source image segment ( 13 ) and/or a coherence error that indicates how much the reference pose is consistent with the pose of the same real world object ( 14 ) as estimated from at least one of preceding and following source images ( 10 ) of the video stream; retrieving the reference poses of the articulated object models ( 4 ) associated with the selected of reference silhouettes; and computing an estimate of the pose of the articulated object model ( 4 ) from the reference poses of the selected reference silhouettes.