Rapid Online Analysis of Local Feature Detectors and Their Complementarity

A vision system that can assess its own performance and take appropriate actions online to maximize its effectiveness would be a step towards achieving the long-cherished goal of imitating humans. This paper proposes a method for performing an online performance analysis of local feature detectors, the primary stage of many practical vision systems. It advocates the spatial distribution of local image features as a good performance indicator and presents a metric that can be calculated rapidly, concurs with human visual assessments and is complementary to existing offline measures such as repeatability. The metric is shown to provide a measure of complementarity for combinations of detectors, correctly reflecting the underlying principles of individual detectors. Qualitative results on well-established datasets for several state-of-the-art detectors are presented based on the proposed measure. Using a hypothesis testing approach and a newly-acquired, larger image database, statistically-significant performance differences are identified. Different detector pairs and triplets are examined quantitatively and the results provide a useful guideline for combining detectors in applications that require a reasonable spatial distribution of image features. A principled framework for combining feature detectors in these applications is also presented. Timing results reveal the potential of the metric for online applications. © 2013 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland

Comparing Feature Detectors: A bias in the repeatability criteria, and how to correct it

Most computer vision application rely on algorithms finding local correspondences between different images. These algorithms detect and compare stable local invariant descriptors centered at scale-invariant keypoints. Because of the importance of the problem, new keypoint detectors and descriptors are constantly being proposed, each one claiming to perform better (or to be complementary) to the preceding ones. This raises the question of a fair comparison between very diverse methods. This evaluation has been mainly based on a repeatability criterion of the keypoints under a series of image perturbations (blur, illumination, noise, rotations, homotheties, homographies, etc). In this paper, we argue that the classic repeatability criterion is biased towards algorithms producing redundant overlapped detections. To compensate this bias, we propose a variant of the repeatability rate taking into account the descriptors overlap. We apply this variant to revisit the popular benchmark by Mikolajczyk et al., on classic and new feature detectors. Experimental evidence shows that the hierarchy of these feature detectors is severely disrupted by the amended comparator.Comment: Fixed typo in affiliation

Performance Analysis of the SIFT Operator for Automatic Feature Extraction and Matching in Photogrammetric Applications

In the photogrammetry field, interest in region detectors, which are widely used in Computer Vision, is quickly increasing due to the availability of new techniques. Images acquired by Mobile Mapping Technology, Oblique Photogrammetric Cameras or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles do not observe normal acquisition conditions. Feature extraction and matching techniques, which are traditionally used in photogrammetry, are usually inefficient for these applications as they are unable to provide reliable results under extreme geometrical conditions (convergent taking geometry, strong affine transformations, etc.) and for bad-textured images. A performance analysis of the SIFT technique in aerial and close-range photogrammetric applications is presented in this paper. The goal is to establish the suitability of the SIFT technique for automatic tie point extraction and approximate DSM (Digital Surface Model) generation. First, the performances of the SIFT operator have been compared with those provided by feature extraction and matching techniques used in photogrammetry. All these techniques have been implemented by the authors and validated on aerial and terrestrial images. Moreover, an auto-adaptive version of the SIFT operator has been developed, in order to improve the performances of the SIFT detector in relation to the texture of the images. The Auto-Adaptive SIFT operator (A2 SIFT) has been validated on several aerial images, with particular attention to large scale aerial images acquired using mini-UAV systems

Measuring the Coverage of Interest Point Detectors

Repeatability is widely used as an indicator of the performance of an image feature detector but, although useful, it does not convey all the information that is required to describe performance. This paper explores the spatial distribution of interest points as an alternative indicator of performance, presenting a metric that is shown to concur with visual assessments. This metric is then extended to provide a measure of complementarity for pairs of detectors. Several state-of-the-art detectors are assessed, both individually and in combination. It is found that Scale Invariant Feature Operator (SFOP) is dominant, both when used alone and in combination with other detectors

Do-It-Yourself Single Camera 3D Pointer Input Device

We present a new algorithm for single camera 3D reconstruction, or 3D input for human-computer interfaces, based on precise tracking of an elongated object, such as a pen, having a pattern of colored bands. To configure the system, the user provides no more than one labelled image of a handmade pointer, measurements of its colored bands, and the camera's pinhole projection matrix. Other systems are of much higher cost and complexity, requiring combinations of multiple cameras, stereocameras, and pointers with sensors and lights. Instead of relying on information from multiple devices, we examine our single view more closely, integrating geometric and appearance constraints to robustly track the pointer in the presence of occlusion and distractor objects. By probing objects of known geometry with the pointer, we demonstrate acceptable accuracy of 3D localization.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, 2018 15th Conference on Computer and Robot Visio

Methods for multi-spectral image fusion: identifying stable and repeatable information across the visible and infrared spectra

Fusion of images captured from different viewpoints is a well-known challenge in computer vision with many established approaches and applications; however, if the observations are captured by sensors also separated by wavelength, this challenge is compounded significantly. This dissertation presents an investigation into the fusion of visible and thermal image information from two front-facing sensors mounted side-by-side. The primary focus of this work is the development of methods that enable us to map and overlay multi-spectral information; the goal is to establish a combined image in which each pixel contains both colour and thermal information. Pixel-level fusion of these distinct modalities is approached using computational stereo methods; the focus is on the viewpoint alignment and correspondence search/matching stages of processing. Frequency domain analysis is performed using a method called phase congruency. An extensive investigation of this method is carried out with two major objectives: to identify predictable relationships between the elements extracted from each modality, and to establish a stable representation of the common information captured by both sensors. Phase congruency is shown to be a stable edge detector and repeatable spatial similarity measure for multi-spectral information; this result forms the basis for the methods developed in the subsequent chapters of this work. The feasibility of automatic alignment with sparse feature-correspondence methods is investigated. It is found that conventional methods fail to match inter-spectrum correspondences, motivating the development of an edge orientation histogram (EOH) descriptor which incorporates elements of the phase congruency process. A cost function, which incorporates the outputs of the phase congruency process and the mutual information similarity measure, is developed for computational stereo correspondence matching. An evaluation of the proposed cost function shows it to be an effective similarity measure for multi-spectral information