Immortal background modes

IMMORTAL BACKGROUND MODES Disclosed herein are a method and system for updating a visual element model (250) of a scene model (230) associated with a scene captured in an image sequence. The visual element model (250) includes a set of mode models (260, 270) for a visual element (240) corresponding to a location (220) of the scene. The method identifies a first mode model from the set of mode models (260, 270) for the visual element model as a candidate deletion mode model. The method then removes the identified candidate deletion mode model from the set of mode models (260, 270) for the visual element model (250), to update the visual element model (250) for the video sequence, if one of the following two conditions is satisfied: (a) a first temporal attribute associated with the candidate deletion mode model does not satisfy a first threshold (T); or (b) the first temporal attribute associated with the candidate deletion mode model satisfies said first threshold and a second temporal attribute associated with a second mode model in the set of mode models (250) satisfies a second threshold (Tk). 3528984_I.DOC IRN: 979040 0~C, CO) 10 c a))C EE cu .. . . . . . . .. . . .E LoLC CL x