A real-time color-based object tracking robust to irregular illumination variations

Abstract

Color-based object tracking takes great attentions since a color is an efficient and robust visual cue for characterizing one object from the other objects. Color segmentation is, however, suffered from color variations induced from irregular illumination variations and the viewing geometry, of a camera. This paper proposes a reliable color modeling approach including intensity information in HSI color space using B-spline curves based on the fact that color distribution of a single-colored object even in HS (Hue-Saturation) plane is not invariant with respect to brightness variations in practical cameras. By using the approach, our color-based visual tracker is able to adapt to irregular illumination variations and abrupt changes of brightness. The approach is applied for real-time face tracking under various illumination conditions successfully in a PC-based vision system.