What's the difference between track and tracklet in tracking?

Question

I don't understand the meaning of tracklet and track. I assumed that tracklet is a short track between frames, but it isn't clear to me. Can you elaborate more?

Answer 1

Yes you guessed it right, tracklet is basically a short track between 5 or 6 frames generally. Track generally refers to the entire trajectory of a unique object's (person) path. During training, we give short paths of different individuals referred to as tracklet. AFAIK, short paths are chosen because most tracking algorithms use a constant velocity linear motion model - and short tracks are usually straight lines and change is velocity is very small.

The term is very informal, as I couldn't find any literature about it as well when I was working on a tracking problem.

Answer 2

1. You may want to check this paper out Data Fusion Methods for Netted Sensors with Limited Communication Bandwidth
2. If you have access to SPIE, then look up O.E. Drummond, "Track and Tracklet Fusion Using Data from Distributed Sensors".
3. Also, Blackman's book, "Design and Analysis of Modern Tracking Systems" may be of interest.