Convex-based lightweight feature descriptor for Augmented Reality Tracking

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 19; no. 7; p. e0305199
• Main Authors: S, Indhumathi, Clement J, Christopher
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 18.07.2024; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Accuracy; Algorithms; Augmented Reality; Biology and Life Sciences; Classification; Computation; Computer and Information Sciences; Convex analysis; Covariance matrix; Efficiency; Eigenvalues; Eigenvectors; Humans; Image enhancement; Image filters; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted - methods; Image retrieval; Invariants; Medicine and Health Sciences; Optimization; Physical Sciences; Polynomials; Recall; Research and Analysis Methods; Robustness (mathematics); Tracking; Unmanned aerial vehicles
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0305199

Feature description is a critical task in Augmented Reality Tracking. This article introduces a Convex Based Feature Descriptor (CBFD) system designed to withstand rotation, lighting, and blur variations while remaining computationally efficient. We have developed two filters capable of computing pixel intensity variations, followed by the covariance matrix of the polynomial to describe the features. The superiority of CBFD is validated through precision, recall, computation time, and feature location distance. Additionally, we provide a solution to determine the optimal block size for describing nonlinear regions, thereby enhancing resolution. The results demonstrate that CBFD achieves a average precision of 0.97 for the test image, outperforming Superpoint, Directional Intensified Tertiary Filtering (DITF), Binary Robust Independent Elementary Features (BRIEF), Binary Robust Invariant Scalable Keypoints (BRISK), Speeded Up Robust Features (SURF), and Scale Invariant Feature Transform (SIFT), which achieve scores of 0.95, 0.92, 0.72, 0.66, 0.63 and 0.50 respectively. Noteworthy is CBFD's recall value of 0.87 representing at the maximum of a 13.6% improvement over Superpoint, DITF, BRIEF, BRISK, SURF, and SIFT. Furthermore, the matching score for the test image is 0.975. The computation time for CBFD is 2.8 ms, which is at least 6.7% lower than that of other algorithms. Finally, the plot of location feature distance illustrates that CBFD exhibits minimal distance compared to DITF and Histogram of Oriented Gradients (HOG). These results highlight the speed and robustness of CBFD across various transformations.