Patent Document ID: 8934670
Application ID: 13597902
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. A method for real time processing of a sequence of video frames, said method comprising: analyzing, by a processor of a computer system, a current frame in the sequence and at least one frame in the sequence occurring prior to the current frame, each frame comprising a two-dimensional array of pixels and a frame-dependent color intensity at each pixel, said array of pixels in each frame being a totality of pixels in each frame in the sequence of video frames received in synchronization with a recording of the video frames in real time, said analyzing comprising performing a background subtraction on the at least one frame, said performing the background subtraction determining a background image and also determining a static region mask associated with a static region consisting of a contiguous distribution of pixels in the current frame, said static region mask identifying each pixel in the static region upon the static region mask being superimposed on the current frame, said background image comprising the array of pixels and a background model of the at least one frame and not comprising any moving object, said analyzing determining an existence of a static object consisting of either an abandoned object existing in the static region of the current frame and not existing in the static region of the background image or a removed object existing in the static region of the background image and not existing in the static region of the current frame; after said analyzing, said processor determining a status of the static object, said status being an abandoned status if the static object is said abandoned object or a removed status if the static object is said removed object; wherein said determining the status of the static object comprises executing an abandoned/removed object detection algorithm that uses the current frame, the background image, and the static region mask as input and does not use any other information derived from the background subtraction as input; wherein said executing the abandoned/removed object detection algorithm comprises: eroding outer pixels of the static region mask, resulting in eroded pixels and leaving remaining non-eroded pixels of the static region mask, wherein boundary pixels of the non-eroded pixels consist of all non-eroded pixels directly exposed to at least one eroded pixel and are bounded by a contour consisting of an interfacial boundary between the non-eroded pixels and the eroded pixels; executing a region growing procedure for the current frame by denoting an input frame used by the region growing procedure to be the current frame, and subsequently executing the region growing procedure, resulting in receiving a growth area A CF as an output growth area from said executing the region growing procedure; executing the region growing procedure for the background image by the denoting the input frame used by the region growing procedure to be the background image and subsequently executing the region growing procedure, resulting in receiving a growth area A BI as the output growth area from said executing the region growing procedure; and wherein said determining the status of the static object is based on A BI −A CF , wherein said executing the region growing procedure comprises: (i) selecting first seed pixels from the boundary pixels superimposed on the input frame or selecting first seed pixels as consisting of first seed pixels selected in a prior execution of the region growing procedure for another input frame; (ii) iteratively growing the selected first seed pixels outside the non-eroded pixels to create new seed pixels at neighbor pixels thereof whose color intensity matches the color intensity of the neighbor first seed pixels according to a specified color matching criterion, said iteratively growing creating new seed pixels at the neighbor pixels in successive generations of new seed pixel creation until additional new seed pixels cannot be created; and (iii) determining the output growth area as a composite area of the new seed pixels.