Publication Data
Efficient Hierarchical Graph-Based Video Segmentation
Abstract: We present an efficient and scalable technique for
spatio-temporal segmentation of long video sequences using a hierarchical graph-based
algorithm. We begin by over-segmenting a volumetric video graph into space-time regions
grouped by appearance. We then construct a ``region graph" over the obtained
segmentation and iteratively repeat this process over multiple levels to create a tree
of spatio-temporal segmentations. This hierarchical approach generates high quality
segmentations which are temporally coherent with stable region boundaries.
Additionally, the resulting segmentation hierarchy allows subsequent applications to
choose from varying levels of granularity. We further improve segmentation quality by
using dense optical flow when constructing the initial graph. We also propose two novel
approaches to improve the scalability of our technique: (a) a parallel out-of-core
algorithm that can process volumes much larger than an in-core algorithm, and (b) a
clip-based processing algorithm that divides the video into overlapping clips in time,
and segments them successively while enforcing consistency. We can segment video shots
as long as 40 seconds without compromising quality, and even support a streaming mode
for arbitrarily long videos, albeit without the ability to process them hierarchically.
