3D Z-string: A new knowledge structure to represent spatio-temporal relations between objects in a video

In this paper, we propose a new knowledge structure called 3D Z-string, extended from the 2D Z-string, to represent the spatial and temporal relations between objects in a video and to keep track of the motions and size changes of the objects. Since there are no cuttings between objects in the 3D Z-string, the integrity of objects is preserved. The string generation and video reconstruction algorithms for the 3D Z-string representation of video objects are also developed. The string generated by the string generation algorithm is unique for a given video and the video reconstructed from a given 3D Z-string is unique too. The experimental results show that the 3D Z-string is more compact and efficient than the 3D C-string in terms of storage space and execution time.