Title: A robust method for camera motion estimation in movies based on optical flow

Authors: Nhat-Tan Nguyen, Denis Laurendeau, Alexandra Branzan-Albu

Addresses: The Computer Vision and Systems Laboratory, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, 1065, Avenue de la Medecine Laval University, Quebec (QC) G1V 0A6, Canada. ' The Computer Vision and Systems Laboratory, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, 1065, Avenue de la Medecine Laval University, Quebec (QC) G1V 0A6, Canada. ' The Computer Vision and Systems Laboratory, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Laval University, University of Victoria, Victoria (BC) V8W 3P6, Canada

Abstract: Camera motion estimation plays an important role in digital video analysis algorithms such as video indexing and retrieval or automatic movie analysis. Several algorithms have been proposed to solve this problem in MPEG videos. This paper presents an optical flow-based approach for the camera motion estimation in all kinds of digital video formats, especially in movies. It compares the motion vector fields (MVFs) with six predefined templates to determine the type of motion. The MVFs are generated by using high-accuracy optical flow computation. The advantage of the method lies in its robustness to noisy environments such as false motion vectors and object motions. Comprehensive experiments with video clips extracted from well-known feature movies demonstrate the performance of the proposed approach.

Keywords: camera motion detection; optical flow; MVF; motion vector fields; shot detection; camera motion estimation; digital video analysis; movies; films; video clips.

DOI: 10.1504/IJISTA.2010.036578

International Journal of Intelligent Systems Technologies and Applications, 2010 Vol.9 No.3/4, pp.228 - 238

Published online: 04 Nov 2010 *

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