Ghrist Barcoded Video Frames. Application in Detecting Persistent Visual Scene Surface Shapes captured in Videos

Abstract

This article introduces an application of Ghrist barcodes in the study of persistent Betti numbers derived from vortex nerve complexes found in triangulations of video frames. A Ghrist barcode is a topology of data pictograph useful in representing the persistence of the features of changing shapes. The basic approach is to introduce a free Abelian group representation of intersecting filled polygons on the barycenters of the triangles of Alexandroff nerves. An Alexandroff nerve is a maximal collection of triangles with a common vertex in the triangulation of a finite, bounded planar region. In our case, the planar region is a video frame. A Betti number is a count of the number of generators in a finite Abelian group. The focus here is on the persistent Betti numbers across sequences of triangulated video frames. Each Betti number is mapped to an entry in a Ghrist barcode. Two main results are given, namely, vortex nerves are Edelsbrunner-Harer nerve complexes and the Betti number of a vortex nerve equals $k+2$ for a vortex nerve containing $k$ edges attached between a pair of vortex cycles in the nerve.