Patent Document ID: 20120120073
Application ID: 13319968
Patent Status: 0

Claim One:
1. A method for real-time-capable computer-assisted analysis of an image sequence containing a variable pose of an object composed of interconnected elements movable in relation to each other, wherein the frames of the image sequence have been recorded by a time-of-flight (TOF) camera so that they can be processed by a computer and the frames have brightness and distance data as functions of pixel coordinates of the camera for each frame of the sequence; the method comprising: (a) detecting the pixels of a frame which map the object; (b) calculating a three-dimensional (3D) aggregate of points within a virtual space, which represents that surface of the object which is visible for the camera, by calculated projection of object-mapping pixels into such a space, taking into account acquired data of a distance from the object; (c) fitting a model of the object, which consists of nodes and edges, into the computer-generated 3D aggregate of points for the frame, the nodes representing a selection of elements of the object and the edges representing interconnections of these elements; (d) iteratively updating all node positions by using a learning rule for training a self-organizing map with a predetermined number of randomly sampled points of the aggregate of points; (e) repeating the steps (a) through (d) for each subsequent frame of the sequence, the result of step (e) of the preceding frame being used respectively for the fitting process in step (c); and (f) determining the changing pose from positions of predetermined nodes of the model, which have been detected in at least representative frames of the image sequence.