Development of a method for determining the position of an object using a typical form of its image

Abstract

Violating the observation conditions for the investigated objects leads to the formation of diverse typical forms of objects throughout the frame in the series. As a consequence, determining the exact position of the object on the frame becomes difficult. To this end, a method was devised to determine the position of an object using the typical form of its image on a series of frames. This method is based on the formation of a typical form of a digital image of an object based on data from all frames of the series. This makes it possible to take into account the peculiarities of the very formation of the digital image of an object on each frame of the original series. Based on this, a more accurate assessment of the initial approximation of the parameters of all Gaussians of the object's image is performed. Adapting the method specifically for the typical form allows for a more accurate assessment of the positional parameters (coordinates) of the object in comparison with the analytically set profile. The estimation of the position of an object was obtained using the method of least squares. After that, minimization was performed using the Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm. Also, the use of the method makes it possible to improve identification with reference objects and reduce the number of false detections. The study showed a reduction in the standard deviation of frame identification errors by 7–10 times when using a typical digital image shape. The method devised for determining the position of an object using the typical form of its image was tested in practice within the framework of the CoLiTec project. It was implemented in the intraframe processing unit of the Lemur software to automatically detect new objects and track known ones. Owing to the use of Lemur software and the proposed computational method implemented in it, more than 700,000 measurements of various objects under study were successfully processed and identified