A Novel Algorithm for View and Illumination Invariant Image Matching

• Published in: IEEE transactions on image processing Vol. 21; no. 1; pp. 229 - 240
• Main Authors: Yu, Yinan, Huang, Kaiqi, Chen, Wei, Tan, Tieniu
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY IEEE 01.01.2012; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
• Subjects: Algorithms; Applied sciences; Detectors; Estimation; Exact sciences and technology; Feature detector evaluation; Feature extraction; Histograms; Image Enhancement - methods; Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted - methods; Image matching; Image processing; Information, signal and communications theory; Lighting; Lighting - methods; Pattern Recognition, Automated - methods; Reproducibility of Results; Sensitivity and Specificity; Signal processing; Telecommunications and information theory; Transforms; valid angle (VA); valid illumination (VI); valid illumination (VI); Accuracy; Feature detector evaluation; Image processing; Image matching; Illumination; valid angle (VA); Invariance
• ISSN: 1057-7149; 1941-0042
• DOI: 10.1109/TIP.2011.2160271

The challenges in local-feature-based image matching are variations of view and illumination. Many methods have been recently proposed to address these problems by using invariant feature detectors and distinctive descriptors. However, the matching performance is still unstable and inaccurate, particularly when large variation in view or illumination occurs. In this paper, we propose a view and illumination invariant image-matching method. We iteratively estimate the relationship of the relative view and illumination of the images, transform the view of one image to the other, and normalize their illumination for accurate matching. Our method does not aim to increase the invariance of the detector but to improve the accuracy, stability, and reliability of the matching results. The performance of matching is significantly improved and is not affected by the changes of view and illumination in a valid range. The proposed method would fail when the initial view and illumination method fails, which gives us a new sight to evaluate the traditional detectors. We propose two novel indicators for detector evaluation, namely, valid angle and valid illumination, which reflect the maximum allowable change in view and illumination, respectively. Extensive experimental results show that our method improves the traditional detector significantly, even in large variations, and the two indicators are much more distinctive.