Method and device for processing and for searching for an object by signals corresponding to images

• US 20070258659A1
• Filed: 07/10/2007
• Published: 11/08/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 07/05/1999
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Rakuten Group, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Miroslaw Bober
• Inventors: Bober, Miroslaw
• Granted Patent: US 7,430,338 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/276
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/5854 using shape and object relationship
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/46 Descriptors for shape, contour or point-related descriptors, e.g. scale invariant feature transform [SIFT] or bags of words [BoW]; Salient regional features colour feature extraction G06V10/56
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/752 Contour matching

Abstract

A method of representing an object appearing in a still or video image, by processing signals corresponding to the image, comprises deriving the peak values in CSS space for the object outline and applying a non-linear transformation to said peak values to arrive at a representation of the outline.

Claims

1. A method of representing an object appearing in an image or a sequence of images, by processing signals corresponding to the image, the

method comprising deriving a plurality of co-ordinate values for peaks of the outline of the object in curvature scale space on the basis of the signals and applying a transformation to said co-ordinate values to arrive at a representation of the outline,

wherein said transformation is in the form of z′

=a pow(z,b)+c, where a, b and c are constants and pow (z,b) denotes z to the power b.

2. A method for searching for an object in an image or sequence of images by processing signals corresponding to images, the method comprising inputting a query in the form of a two-dimensional outline,

deriving a descriptor of said outline using a method as claimed in claim 1, obtaining a descriptor of objects in stored images derived using a method as claimed in any proceeding claim and comparing said query descriptor with each descriptor for a stored object, and selecting and displaying at least ope result corresponding to an image containing an object for which the comparison indicates a degree of similarity between the query and said object.

3. An apparatus adapted to implement a method as claimed in claim 1 or claim 2.

4. A computer program for implementing a method as claimed in claim 1 or claim 2.

5. A computer system programmed to operate according to a method as claimed in claim 1 or claim 2.

6. A computer-readable storage medium storing computer-executable process steps for implementing a method as claimed in claim 1 or claim 2.