Spatio-temporal filters for transparent motion segmentation

An image is ideally a projection of the 3-D scene. However, the imaging process is always imperfect and constrained by the physical environment. This paper is concerned with image sequences acquired in such situations, the so-called transparency, for example, viewing through a window with reflections. When such situation occurs, the image sequence contains undesirable transparent motion, for example, of the window reflections. This complicates the already difficult motion estimation problem. We present an algorithm to segment transparent motion based on a spatiotemporal filtering technique—3-D Hermite polynomial differentiation filters. With motion segmentation accomplished, we can then focus on the scene analysis. The implementation of our algorithm is fast and accurate.