Human Posture Sequence Estimation Using Two Un-calibrated Cameras

R. Wang and W. K. Leow (National Univeristy of Singapore).

3D Human posture sequence estimation from single or multiple image sequences is essential in many applications, such as vision-based sport coaching and physical rehabilitation. However, 3D posture sequence cannot be accurately estimated from single image sequence due to depth ambiguity and self-occlusion, and pre-calibration is often required when estimating 3D posture sequence from multiple image sequences. In this paper, we present an algorithm to accurately estimate 3D human posture sequence from two un-calibrated image sequences by combining a modified Nonparametric Belief Propagation (mNBP) method with an efficient camera self-calibration method. The mNBP can estimate posture even when there is partial self-occlusion and when the human model scale is different from that of body image in image sequences. The efficient self-calibration can guarantee to find the optimal rotation and relative scale between two fixed but un-calibrated scaled orthographic cameras, without a nonlinear optimization process. Quantitative and qualitative test results show the algorithm's capability of estimating 3D posture sequence from a pair of un-calibrated image sequences.