Object Tracking Based on Centroids Shifting with Scale Adaptation

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a stable scale adaptive tracking method that uses centroids of the target colors. Most scale adaptive tracking methods have utilized histograms to determine target window sizes.However, in certain cases, histograms fail to provide good estimates of target sizes, for example, in the case of occlusion or the appearance of colors in the background that are similar to the target colors. This is due to the fact that histograms are related to the numbers of pixels that correspond to the target colors. Therefore, we propose the use of centroids that correspond to the target colors in the scale adaptation algorithm, since centroids are less sensitive to changes in the number of pixels that correspond to the target colors. Due to the spatial information inherent in centroids, a direct relationship can be established between centroids and the scale of target regions. Generally, after the zooming factors that correspond to all the target colors are calculated, the unreliable zooming factors are filtered out to produce a reliable zooming factor that determines the new scale of the target. Combined with the centroid based tracking algorithm, the proposed scale adaptation method results in a stable scale adaptive tracking algorithm. It tracks objects in a stable way, even when the background colors are similar to the colors of the object.