Motion tracking of deformable objects based on energy minimization using multiscale dynamic programming

Describes a method for tracking a deformable object in a time-varying image sequence and analyzing the motion of the object. The approach is based upon modeling the boundary of the object as a new active contour model defined by an energy functional in terms of intra- and inter-frame constraints, and then finding the object boundary in the temporal images by minimizing the energy functional using dynamic programming in multiple scales. Motion analysis is carried out by analyzing some characteristic points which are extracted as local curvature extrema along the contour. The proposed method has been successfully applied to the analysis of a slug (Limax flavus) in motion with smooth deformation, in the study of the mechanisms of learning and memory formation in slugs