A generative model for simultaneous estimation of human body shape and pixel-level segmentation

Abstract

This paper addresses pixel-level segmentation of a human body from a single image. The problem is formulated as a multi-region segmentation where the human body is constrained to be a collection of geometrically linked regions and the background is split into a small number of distinct zones. We solve this problem in a Bayesian framework for jointly estimating articulated body pose and the pixel-level segmentation of each body part. Using an image likelihood function that simultaneously generates and evaluates the image segmentation corresponding to a given pose, we robustly explore the posterior body shape distribution using a data-driven, coarse-to-fine Metropolis Hastings sampling scheme that includes a strongly data-driven proposal term. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.