Background Subtraction for Freely Moving Cameras

Background subtraction algorithms define the background as parts of a scene that are at rest. Traditionally, these algorithms assume a stationary camera, and identify moving objects by detecting areas in a video that change over time. In this paper, we extend the concept of 'subtracting' areas at rest to apply to video captured from a freely moving camera. We do no assume that the background is well-approximated by a plane or that the camera center remains stationary during motion. The method operates entirely using 2D image measurements without requiring an explicit 3D reconstruction of the scene. A sparse model of background is built by robustly estimating a compact trajectory basis from trajectories of salient features across the video, and the background is 'subtracted' by removing trajectories that lie within the space spanned by the basis. Foreground and background appearance models are then built, and an optimal pixel-wise foreground/background labeling is obtained by efficiently maximizing a posterior function.