Edge-based tracking

This was our first research into edge-based tracking based on the Harris' RAPiD tracker. The videos below were made in 1999 on a 225 MHz SGI. This work won the Industry prize at BMVC 1999

[Prizewinning 1999 BMVC Paper] [Video1] [Video2 (with occlusion)]

	The approach is based upon a CAD model of the structure that is to be tracked.The CAD model is rendered from a predicted viewpoint (this may be where the object was found in the previous frame, or a motion estimate may be used to give a more accurate prediction).
	This identifies the edges of the model which are expected to be visible. Sample points are then assigned at uniform intervals along these visible edges
	A search is then conducted from each sample point for an intensity discontinuity in the video imageA change in the pose estimate is then computed which minimises these errors. This is achieved using iterative re-weighted least squares which allows the use of an M-estimator which is robust to outliers. The following videos show the basic tracker in action.

Movies

These videos were made when the tracker was first implemented on an SGI with a 225MHz R10K CPU

An mpeg movie of the tracking system (~1MB)

Movie showing basic robustness to occlusion (~1MB)

Publications

Real-time tracking of complex structures with on-line camera calibration (BMVC 1999)