Boundary extraction of moving objects from image sequence

In this paper we address a new approach of contour extraction of moving objects using active contours in an image sequence. Both the spatial convolution process and the external boundary tracing algorithm (EBTA) are used to resolve the problem of automatically locating the initial contour for the external boundaries of an object in the image. Ongoing directions where the contour moves are decided by one of three directions instead of eight directions. We could reduce the time complexity of the energy minimizing operation of the contour by considering only three ongoing directions. In order to apply the proposed algorithm to consecutive imagery, a Kalman filter, an optimal parameter estimator, is adopted. The algorithm extracts the contour of an object from only two consecutive images and takes 0.36 seconds of CPU time