Tracking Interacting Objects Optimally Using Integer Programming

In this paper, we show that tracking different kinds of interacting objects can be formulated as a network-flow Mixed Integer Program. This is made possible by tracking all objects simultaneously and expressing the fact that one object can appear or disappear at locations where another is in terms of linear flow constraints. We demonstrate the power of our approach on scenes involving cars and pedestrians, bags being carried and dropped by people, and balls being passed from one player to the next in a basketball game. In particular, we show that by estimating jointly and globally the trajectories of different types of objects, the presence of the ones which were not initially detected based solely on image evidence can be inferred from the detections of the others.