Smart extraction of desired object from color-distance image with user’s tiny scribble

Image segmentation is an important problem because it is required for many different applications. In particular, visual extraction of an object that is the target of attention or manipulation, is an increasingly important issue in robot vision. In real-world applications, a robot needs to extract an object designated by a human in a complicated environment. There is a large literature on the problem of image segmentation, but most previous methods have a limited ability to extract desired objects from a cluttered scene. Moreover, from the perspective of human-robot interfaces, it is desirable to make it as easy as possible for the user to indicate an object. In this paper, we propose a segmentation method, CD-matting, which can correctly extract a target object in complicated real-world visual situations. This method exploits color and distance information in an integrated way. The system requires only a simple input to designate the target object. We verify the proposed system by real-world experiments. The results show the effectiveness of our method in complicated situations.