Statistical and Geometrical Approaches to Visual Motion Analysis

Motion analysis is central to both human and machine vision. It involves the interpretation of image data over time and is crucial for a range of motion tasks suchasobstacledetection, depthestimation, videoanalysis, sceneinterpretation, videocompressionandotherapplications. Motionanalysisis unsolvedbecauseit requires modeling of the complicated relationships between the observed image data and the motion of objects and motion patterns (e. g., falling rain) in the visual scene. The Dagstuhl Seminar 08291 on Statistical and Geometrical Approaches to Visual Motion Analysis was held during July 13-18, 2008 at the International Conference and Research Center (IBFI), Schloss Dagstuhl, near Wadern in G- many. The workshop focused on critical aspects of motion analysis, including motion segmentation, the modeling of motion patterns and the di?erent te- niques used. These techniques include variationalapproaches, level set methods, probabilistic models, graph cut approaches, factorization techniques, and neural networks. All these techniques can be subsumed within statistical and geomet- cal frameworks. We further involved experts in the study of human and primate vision. Primatevisualsystemsareextremely sophisticatedat processingmotion, thus there is much to be learnt from studying them. In particular, we discussed how to relate the computational models of primate visual systems to those - veloped for machine vision. In total, 15 papers were accepted for these proceedings after the workshop. We werecarefulto ensurea high standardof qualityfor the accepted papers. All submissions were double-blind reviewed by at least two experts.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the International Dagstuhl-Seminar on Statistical and Geometrical Approaches to Visual Motion Analysis, held in Dagstuhl Castle, Germany, in July 2008.

The workshop focused on critical aspects of motion analysis, including motion segmentation and the modeling of motion patterns. The aim was to gather researchers who are experts in the different motion tasks and in the different techniques used; also involved were experts in the study of human and primate vision.

The 15 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from or initiated by the lectures given at the workshop. The papers are organized in topical sections on optical flow and extensions, human motion modeling, biological and statistical approaches, alternative approaches to motion analysis.