Video Segmentation and Keyframe Extraction

The goal of this chapter is to show how clustering techniques are applied to perform video segmentation, i.e. to split videos into segments meaningful from a semantic point of view. The segmentation is the first step of any process aimed at extracting from videos high level information, i.e. information which is not explicitly stated in the data, but it rather requires an abstraction process [10] [17] [22]. The video segmentation can be thought of as the partitioning of a text into chapters, sections and other parts that help the reader to better access the content. In more general terms, the segmentation of a long document (text, video, audio, etc.) into smaller parts addresses the limits of the human mind in dealing with large amounts of information. In fact, humans are known to be more effective when managing five to nine information chunks rather than a single information block corresponding to the sum of the chunks [30].