Decision Tree Generation Algorithm for Image-based Video Conferencing

Recently, the diverse kinds of applications in multimedia computing have been developed for visual surveillance, healthcare, smart cities, and security. Video conferencing is one of core applications among multimedia applications. The Quality of Service of video conferencing is a major issue, because of limited network traffic. Video conferencing allow a large number of users to converse with each other. However, the huge amount of packets are generated in the process of transmitting and receiving the photographed images of users. Therefore, the number of packets in video conferencing needs to be reduced. Video conferencing can be conducted in virtual reality by sending only the control signals of virtual characters and showing virtual characters based on the received signals to represent the users, instead of the photographed images of the users, in real time. This paper proposes a method that determines representative photographed images by analyzing the collected photographed images of users, using K-Medoids algorithm and a decision tree, and expresses the users based on the analyzed images. The decision tree used for video conferencing are generated automatically using the proposed method. Given that the behaviors in the decision tree is added or changed considering photographed images, it is possible to reproduce the decision tree by photographing the behavior of the user in real-time. In an experiment conducted, 63 consecutively photographed images were collected and a decision tree generated by using the silhouette images of the photographed images. Indices of the silhouette images were utilized to express a subject and one index was selected using a decision tree. The proposed method reduced the number of comparisons by a factor of 3.78 compared with the traditional method that uses correlation coefficient. Further, each user’s image could be outputted by using only the control image table of the image and the index.