The video segmentation problem consists in the identification of the boundary between consecutive shots. The common approach to solve this problem is based on dissimilarity measures between frames. In this work, the video segmentation problem is transformed into a problem of pattern detection, where each video event is transformed into a different pattern on a 2D image, called visual rhythm, obtained by a specific transformation. In our analysis we use topological and morphological tools to detect cuts. Also, we use discrete line analysis and max tree analysis to detect fade transitions and flashes, respectively. We present a comparative analysis of our method for cut detection with respect to some other methods, which shows the better results of our method. © 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.247947957Bertrand, G., Everat, J.-C., Couprie, M., Image segmentation through operators based upon topology (1997) J. Electron. Imaging, 6, pp. 395-405Chung, M.G., Lee, J., Kim, H., Song, S.M.-H., Kim, W.M., Automatic video segmentation based on spatiotemporal features (1999) Korea Telecom J., 4 (1), pp. 4-14Del Bimbo, A., (1999) Visual Information Retrieval, , Morgan Kaufmann, Los Altos, CADel Bimbo, A., Pala, P., Tanganelli, L., Retrieval of commercials based on dynamics of color flows (2000) J. Visual Lang. Comput., 11, pp. 273-285Demarty, C.-H., (2000) Segmentation Et Structuration D'un Document Vidéo Pour La Caractérisation Et L'Indexation De Son Contenu Sémantiqué, , Ph.D. Thesis, École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de ParisDunham, J.G., Optimum uniform piecewise linear approximation of planar curves (1986) IEEE Trans. PAMI, 8 (1), pp. 67-75Fernando, W.A.C., Canagarajah, C.N., Bull, D.R., Fade and dissolve detection in uncompressed and compressed video sequences (1999) Proc. of the IEEE ICIP, pp. 299-303Guimaraes, S.J.F., Couprie, M., Leite, N.J., Araújo, A.A., Amethod for cut detection based on visual rhythm (2001) Proc. of the XIV Brazilian Symposium on Computer Graphics and Image Processing--SIBGRAPI, pp. 297-304. , Brazil, IEEE Computer Society Press ISBN 0769513301Lienhart, R., Comparison of automatic shot boundary detection algorithms (1999) SPIE Image and Video Processing, 7, pp. 25-30Ngo, C.W., Pong, T.C., Chin, R.T., Detection of gradual transitions through temporal slice analysis (1999) Proc. of the IEEE CVPR, pp. 36-41Salembier, P., Oliveras, A., Garrido, L., Antiextensive connected operators for image and sequence processing (1998) IEEE Trans. Image Process., 7 (4), pp. 555-570Serra, J., (1988) Image Analysis and Mathematical Morphology: Theoretical Advances, 2. , Academic Press, New YorkSoille, P., (1999) Morphological Image Analysis, , Springer, BerlinTonomura, Y., Akutsu, A., Otsuji, K., Sadakata, T., Videomap and videospaceicon: Tools for anatomizing video content (1993) ACM Interchi, pp. 131-136Wang, Y., Liu, Z., Huang, J.-C., Multimedia content analysis (2000) IEEE Signal Process. Mag., pp. 12-36Zabih, R., Miller, J., Mai, K., Feature-based algorithms for detecting and classifying scene breaks (1995) ACM ICMCS, pp. 12-13. , USA