Comparison of Tracking Techniques on 360-Degree Videos

Featured Application Tracking techniques are essential for attaching an AR tag to a physical target in 360-degree videos. Abstract With the availability of 360-degree cameras, 360-degree videos have become popular recently. To attach a virtual tag on a physical object in 360-degree videos for augmented reality applications, automatic object tracking is required so the virtual tag can follow its corresponding physical object in 360-degree videos. Relative to ordinary videos, 360-degree videos in an equirectangular format have special characteristics such as viewpoint change, occlusion, deformation, lighting change, scale change, and camera shakiness. Tracking algorithms designed for ordinary videos may not work well on 360-degree videos. Therefore, we thoroughly evaluate the performance of eight modern trackers in terms of accuracy and speed on 360-degree videos. The pros and cons of these trackers on 360-degree videos are discussed. Possible improvements to adapt these trackers to 360-degree videos are also suggested. Finally, we provide a dataset containing nine 360-degree videos with ground truth of target positions as a benchmark for future research.