Analysis of independent motion detection in 3D scenes

In this thesis, we develop an algorithm for detecting independent motion in real-time from 2D image sequences of arbitrarily complex 3D scenes. We discuss the necessary background information in image formation, optical flow, multiple view geometry, robust estimation, and real-time camera and scene pose estimation for constructing and understanding the operation of our algorithm. Furthermore, we provide an overview of existing independent motion detection techniques and compare them to our proposed solution. Unfortunately, the existing independent motion detection techniques were not evaluated quantitatively nor were their source code made publicly available. Therefore, it is not possible to make direct comparisons. Instead, we constructed several comparison algorithms which should have comparable performance to these previous approaches. We developed methods for quantitatively comparing independent motion detection algorithms and found that our solution had the best performance. By establishing a method for quantitatively evaluating these algorithms and publishing our results, we hope to foster better research in this area and help future investigators more quickly advance the state of the art.