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Distributed Video Sensor Networks pp 27–39Cite as

Motion Analysis: Past, Present and Future

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Abstract

The subject of motion has been the center of interdisciplinary studies since the time when Zeno posed his paradox circa 500BC. However, computer vision, the use of a camera and a computer to recognize objects, people and/or events automatically, is a relatively young field of research. Its development began in the early 1960s; however, it has matured fairly quickly. Today, it is contributing to the solutions of some of the most serious societal problems. Motion analysis of a sequence of images is an important part of computer vision. This chapter briefly presents the contributions to motion analysis from other fields followed by the computer vision-based analysis of motion from a sequence of images. Analysis and understanding of images based on both feature tracking and optical flow estimation are presented. Early works focused on the computation of structure from motion of objects from a sequence of images via point features. This was followed by the computation of optical flow to characterize motion. Applications today focus on the monitoring of traffic, providing guidance to a motorist in terms of his/her position relative to traffic lanes and traffic ahead, and inspection of complicated three-dimensional industrial parts, to mention a few. Research focus has shifted from inanimate objects to people, for example monitoring people and their activities in public places or monitoring activities from an unmanned aerial vehicle. These applications are dominating the research scene through the belief that computer vision/motion analysis can contribute to the solution of societal surveillance and biometric problems. The chapter ends with a discussion of the future directions of research in motion analysis and possible applications.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The interested reader may note that the first physiological model of motion detection based on the “Autocorrelation, a principle for evaluation of sensory information by nervous system” by Reichardt W. (1961) is presented at the website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_perception.

  2. 2.

    The methods for solving nonlinear equations have progressed significantly, as well as the available computing power, so that now there is a software package, the EOS Systems Photomodeler [13], which uses two views of six points to generate a structure. The software package first appeared on the market in 1999, indicating the long interval between an idea and a product.

  3. 3.

    Professor Takeo Kanade once remarked to the author at a conference that the complexity of the Roach and Aggarwal [32] solution to the feature-tracking problem contributed to the Lucas and Kanade [25] simple solution. Further, the Lucas and Kanade solution is probably his most contributive paper among all his contributions to date.

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Acknowledgements

It is a pleasure to acknowledge the help and comments of Dr. Michael Ryoo, Professors Bill Geisler and Amar Mitiche and Mr. Birgi Tamersoy and Mr. Chia-Chih Chen. Also, my sincere thanks go to Ms. Selina Keilani for editing the manuscript. The research was supported in part by Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board award # 003658-0140-2007.

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  1. The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA

    J. K. Aggarwal

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  1. J. K. Aggarwal
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Correspondence to J. K. Aggarwal .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Research, Intelligent Systems, University of California, Riverside, Riverside, 92521, California, USA

    Bir Bhanu

  2. Dept. Computer Science & Engineering, University of California, Riverside, Riverside, 92521, California, USA

    Chinya V. Ravishankar

  3. Dept. Electrical Engineering, University of California, Riverside, Riverside, 92521, California, USA

    Amit K. Roy-Chowdhury

  4. Dept. Electrical Engineering, Packard Bldg., Stanford University, Serra Mall 350, Stanford, 94305-9505, California, USA

    Hamid Aghajan

  5. Dept. Computer Science, University of California, Los Angeles, Boelter Hall 4731, Los Angeles, 90095-1596, California, USA

    Demetri Terzopoulos

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Aggarwal, J.K. (2011). Motion Analysis: Past, Present and Future. In: Bhanu, B., Ravishankar, C., Roy-Chowdhury, A., Aghajan, H., Terzopoulos, D. (eds) Distributed Video Sensor Networks. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-85729-127-1_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-85729-127-1_2

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