A new approach to tracking with active contours

This paper addresses the application of active contours or snakes for robust tracking of contours. Conventional snake approaches to tracking initialize the current frame snake with the snake obtained in the previous frame and then optimize this result considering only the current frame information. In our approach motion estimation is embedded in the energy minimization process of the snake. This is possible using a dynamic programming approach for this minimization and introducing a new term into the energy of the snake. In this way, larger displacements of the contour are allowed, and the tracking is more robust. This technique is applied for tracking facial features such as the contour of the face, the mouth, the nostrils and the eyebrows.