A novel two stage template matching method for rotation and illumination invariance

Template matching is the process of determining the presence and the location of a reference image or an object inside a scene image under analysis by a spatial cross-correlation process. Conventional cross-correlation type algorithms are computationally expensive. Furthermore, when the object in the image is rotated, the conventional algorithms cannot be used for practical purposes. In this paper, an algorithm for a rotation invariant template matching method based on the combination of the projection method and Zernike moments is proposed. The algorithm consists of two stages. In the first stage, the matching candidates are selected using a computationally low cost feature. Frequency domain calculation was adopted to reduce the computational cost for this stage. In the second stage, rotation invariant template matching is performed only on the matching candidates using Zernike moments. (C) 2001 Pattern Recognition Society. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.