What is object tracking and which technology is best suited to my use case?

Object recognition is widespread and is used in various applications such as recognising people, cars and so on. However, it lacks the intelligence to determine whether different images in video sequences are the same recognised object. Therefore, object tracking is crucial for many machine vision applications. From analysing flows of people and traffic to analysing movement patterns in sporting activities, object tracking plays an indispensable role in gaining valuable insights.

With advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning, object tracking algorithms such as Multiple Object Tracking (MOT) and Single Object Tracking (SOT) are becoming increasingly intelligent, enabling more accurate and faster object tracking. While MOT tracks multiple objects simultaneously and is therefore indispensable in busy scenarios such as traffic or team sports, SOT focuses on a single object. Given this variety of use cases, the question arises as to which object tracking algorithm is best suited for a particular use case. To answer this question, we conducted an experiment, the results of which I would like to present in this blog post.

The experiment

In this experiment, different methods for tracking multiple objects were evaluated using various metrics, with the MOT17 competition serving as a benchmark.

Findings

The experiment showed that the algorithms delivered different results in different use cases, making it clear that there is no "one size fits all" solution. Some trackers such as SORT showed remarkable speed, while their accuracy was significantly affected in scenarios with frequent occlusions and fast object movements. Other methods where a deep learning model is integrated into the tracker, such as DeepSORT, can handle occlusions very well but have problems with fast object movements. Other methods such as ByteTrack are promising in dealing with overlapping trajectories, but show limitations in maintaining consistent track identities over longer periods of time.

Conclusion

Object tracking in video is an important field with many potential applications. The results of this experiment provide a valuable insight into the performance of different object tracking methods and suggest that the choice of the right method depends heavily on the specific requirements of the use case.

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