Tag Archives: Descriptors

Adding rotation invariance to the BRIEF descriptor

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In this post I will explain how to add a simple rotation invariance mechanism to the BRIEF[1] descriptor, I will present evaluation results showing the rotation invariant BRIEF significantly outperforms regular BRIEF where visual geometric changes are present and finally I will post a C++ implementation integrated into OpenCV3.

Just as a reminder, we had a general post on local image descriptors, an introductory post to binary descriptors and a post presenting the BRIEF descriptor. We also had posts on other binary descriptors:  ORB[2], BRISK[3] and FREAK[4].

We’ll start by a visual example, displaying the correct matches between a pair of images of the same scene, taken from different angles – once with the original version of BRIEF (first image pair) and one with the proposed rotation invariant version of BRIEF (second image pair):

Correct matches when using the BRIEF descriptor

Correct matches when using the BRIEF descriptor

Correct matches when using the rotation invariant BRIEF descriptor

Correct matches when using the rotation invariant BRIEF descriptor

It can be seen that there are much more correct matches when using the proposed rotation invariant of the BRIEF descriptor.

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A tutorial on binary descriptors – part 5 – The FREAK descriptor

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This is our fifth post in the series about binary descriptors and here we will talk about the FREAK[4] descriptor. This is the last descriptor that we’ll talk about as the next and final post in the series will give a performance evaluation of the different binary descriptors. Just a remainder – we had an introduction to binary descriptors and posts about BRIEF[5], ORB[3] and BRISK[2].

FREAK descriptor

FREAK descriptor

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A tutorial on binary descriptors – part 4 – The BRISK descriptor

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This fourth post in our series about binary descriptors that will talk about the BRISK descriptor [1]. We had an introduction to patch descriptors, an introduction to binary descriptors and posts about the BRIEF [2] and the ORB [3] descriptors.

We’ll start by showing the following figure that shows an example of using BRISK to match between real world images with viewpoint change. Green lines are valid matches, red circles are detected keypoints.

BRISK descriptor - example of matching points using BRISK

BRISK descriptor – example of matching points using BRISK

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A tutorial on binary descriptors – part 3 – The ORB descriptor

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This third post in our series about binary descriptors that will talk about the ORB descriptor [1]. We had an introduction to patch descriptors, an introduction to binary descriptors and a post about the BRIEF [2] descriptor.

We’ll start by showing the following figure that shows an example of using ORB to match between real world images with viewpoint change. Green lines are valid matches, red circles indicate unmatched points.

ORB descriptor - An example of keypoints matching using ORB

ORB descriptor – An example of keypoints matching using ORB

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A tutorial on binary descriptors – part 2 – The BRIEF descriptor

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Following the previous posts that provided both an introduction to patch descriptors in general and specifically to binary descriptors, it’s time to talk about the individual binary descriptors in more depth. This post will talk about the BRIEF[1] descriptor and the following post will talk about ORB[2], BRISK[3] and FREAK[4].

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Tutorial on Binary Descriptors – part 1

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Why Binary Descriptors?

Following the previous post on descriptors, we’re now familiar with histogram of gradients (HOG) based patch descriptors. SIFT[1], SURF[2] and GLOH[3] have been around since 1999 and been used successfully in various applications, including image alignment, 3D reconstruction and object recognition. On the practicle side, OpenCV includes implementations of SIFT and SURF and Matlab packages are also available (check vlfeat for SIFT and extractFeatures in Matlab computer vision toolbox for SURF).

BRISK descriptor - sampling pairs

BRISK descriptor – sampling pairs

So, if there no question about SIFT and SURF performance, why not use them in every application?

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A Short introduction to descriptors

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Since the next few posts will talk about binary descriptors, I thought it would be a good idea to post a short introduction to the subject of patch descriptors. The following post will talk about the motivation to patch descriptors, the common usage and highlight the Histogram of Oriented Gradients (HOG) based descriptors.

I think the best way to start is to consider one application of patch descriptors and to explain the common pipeline in their usage. Consider, for example, the application of image alignment: we would like to align two images of the same scene taken at slightly different viewpoints. One way of doing so is by applying the following steps:

  1. Compute distinctive keypoints in both images (for example, corners).

  2. Compare the keypoints between the two images to find matches.

  3. Use the matches to find a general mapping between the images (for example, a homography).

  4. Apply the mapping on the first image to align it to the second image.

Using descriptors to compare patches

Using descriptors to compare patches

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