Patent Document ID: 20050232461
Application ID: 10828005
Patent Flag: 0

Claim One:
1. A method of tracking movement of an object between first and second successively generated video images after a position of the object in said first video image has been identified, comprising the steps of: defining a first state vector for the first video image corresponding to the identified position of said object; defining a search window in said second video image based on said first state vector; bottom hat filtering said search window with a non-flat structuring element to form a filtered image; binarizing said filtered image and identifying candidate binary blobs that possibly correspond to said object; computing a spatial Euclidian distance between each candidate binary blob and said first state vector, and selecting a candidate binary blob for which the computed spatial Euclidian distance is smallest; determining a center of mass of the selected binary blob; and defining a second state vector based on said center of mass for identifying the location of said object in said second video image.