Computer Vision (29): Motion Segmentation

Motion segmentation is another concept that comes out of motion detection. As a newly born kid all you see around you is colors; colors that make no sense to you and you don't even know what color they are. One way in which our brain can start segmenting objects is through stereo correspondence. But again the process of stereo correspondence can be mechanical or knowledge based. If it is mechanical then we got to find how it can be done (I will discuss this later), if it is KB, our brain has to first of all learn how to correspond. So how does our brain start to segment objects? If you try to observe the point of vision of newly born kids they seem to be looking somewhere at a far off place which is the relaxed state of our eye. We need to interrupt its brain so that its visual system starts to concentrate on different things. This is the reason we get colorful toys that make interesting sounds and play it in front of them. Bright colors capture the sight of these kids and draw thier attention towards it. But if these objects are placed static the interrupts stop, so also the concentration. In order to keep up the interrupts and concentration you need to keep swaying it in front of them. This not only draws its attention but also helps it to catch up on the object through motion segmentation. You can now see that its eyes are actually pointing on the object you are playing with. After repeating this procedure for quite a few times you will see that it will freeze its sight to the object even if placed static. It has now started to update its knowledge! This knowledge helps it to segment objects from its background as the days pass by and finally they will start to grasp them. This is the onset of the perception of depth.