Region-based shape incorporation for probabilistic spatio-temporal video object segmentation

Embedding generic shape information into probabilistic spatio-temporal video object segmentation is of pivotal importance to achieving better segmentation, since it provides valuable perceptual clues for humans in both distinguishing and recognising objects. Recently a probabilistic spatio-temporal video object segmentation algorithm incorporating shape information has been proposed, though since it is restricted to only pixel features, the probability of a pixel belonging to a certain cluster is directly correlated with its spatial location, which theoretically limits the segmentation performance of the technique. To address this problem, this paper proposes a new probabilistic spatio-temporal video object segmentation algorithm that incorporates generic shape information based on its region. Experimental results reveal a significant performance improvement in arbitrary-shaped video object segmentation compared with other contemporary methods for a variety of standard video test sequences.