Color active contours for tracking roads in natural environments

Abstract

Scene interpretation and feature tracking in natural environments are very complex perceptual functions. Complexity lies on several factors, for example: the lack of control on illumination conditions and the presence of different textures in the environment. This paper presents a real-time method to track roads in natural environments. The scene is previously characterized and classified in different regions by a combined ICA and color segmentation method (not described in this paper). This method is not so fast to track desired features in real time. The region tracking is executed on color active contours. New color potential fields are proposed: a) one to attract active contours depending on the selected region color, and b) the second one to repulse active contours when it is inside the region. Two potential fields are defined from the results of the initial characterization process and are updated by the same process at a given constant frequency, to avoid errors mainly due to global changes in illumination conditions or to local changes on the characteristics of the selected region. This approach has been evaluated on image sequences, acquired in natural environments. © Springer-Verlag 2004.