Carried object detection and tracking using geometric shape models and spatio-temporal consistency

This paper proposes a novel approach that detects and tracks carried objects by modelling the person-carried object relationship that is characteristic of the carry event. In order to detect a generic class of carried objects, we propose the use of geometric shape models, instead of using pre-trained object class models or solely relying on protrusions. In order to track the carried objects, we propose a novel optimization procedure that combines spatio-temporal consistency characteristic of the carry event, with conventional properties such as appearance and motion smoothness respectively. The proposed approach substantially outperforms a state-of-the-art approach on two challenging datasets PETS2006 and MINDSEYE2012.