1. A method for tracking objects in sequential image frames comprising performing steps for: acquiring at least two sequential images of a scene that includes at least one object of interest; performing an active contour analysis of each sequential image frame for identifying at least one contour in each sequential image frame which corresponds to a local maximum in a distribution of possible states for the object of interest; generating an importance function from a sampling of the identified contours for each sequential image frame; for each contour, using the importance function to estimate a posterior probability of a tracking state for the object of interest with respect to each image frame; and identifying a contour having a highest estimated posterior probability as representing a current tracking state of the object of interest for each sequential image frame.