Background subtraction for night videos

PeerJ Comput Sci. 2021 Jun 10:7:e592. doi: 10.7717/peerj-cs.592. eCollection 2021.

Abstract

Motion analysis is important in video surveillance systems and background subtraction is useful for moving object detection in such systems. However, most of the existing background subtraction methods do not work well for surveillance systems in the evening because objects are usually dark and reflected light is usually strong. To resolve these issues, we propose a framework that utilizes a Weber contrast descriptor, a texture feature extractor, and a light detection unit, to extract the features of foreground objects. We propose a local pattern enhancement method. For the light detection unit, our method utilizes the finding that lighted areas in the evening usually have a low saturation in hue-saturation-value and hue-saturation-lightness color spaces. Finally, we update the background model and the foreground objects in the framework. This approach is able to improve foreground object detection in night videos, which do not need a large data set for pre-training.

Keywords: Background Subtraction; Night Videos.

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NO. 61802372), the Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province (NO. LGG20F020011), the Ningbo Science and Technology Innovation Project (NO. 2018B10080, 2019B10035), and the Qianjiang Talent Plan (NO. QJD1702031). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.