Efficient Multiple Object Tracking Using Mutually Repulsive Active Membranes

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel active contour model with mutual repulsion for high-density multiple object tracking, demonstrating high accuracy in biological studies of flies and bacteria.

Contribution

The paper presents a new active membrane tracking algorithm with repulsive interactions, improving accuracy in dense object tracking scenarios.

Findings

Achieved error rates better than 5×10^{-6} per fly per second for Drosophila.

Successfully tracked high-density bacteria and flies at different scales.

Demonstrated gender-specific social behaviors in flies using the model.

Abstract

Studies of social and group behavior in interacting organisms require high-throughput analysis of the motion of a large number of individual subjects. Computer vision techniques offer solutions to specific tracking problems, and allow automated and efficient tracking with minimal human intervention. In this work, we adopt the open active contour model to track the trajectories of moving objects at high density. We add repulsive interactions between open contours to the original model, treat the trajectories as an extrusion in the temporal dimension, and show applications to two tracking problems. The walking behavior of Drosophila is studied at different population density and gender composition. We demonstrate that individual male flies have distinct walking signatures, and that the social interaction between flies in a mixed gender arena is gender specific. We also apply our model to studies of trajectories of gliding Myxococcus xanthus bacteria at high density. We examine the individual gliding behavioral statistics in terms of the gliding speed distribution. Using these two examples at very distinctive spatial scales, we illustrate the use of our algorithm on tracking both short rigid bodies (Drosophila) and long flexible objects (Myxococcus xanthus). Our repulsive active membrane model reaches error rates better than $5\times 10^{-6}$ per fly per second for Drosophila tracking and comparable results for Myxococcus xanthus.