Interest Points

Computer Vision
Jia-Bin Huang, Virginia Tech
Many slides from N Snavely, K. Grauman & Leibe, and D. Hoiem
Administrative Stuffs
• HW 1 posted, due 11:59 PM Sept 25
• Submission through Canvas

• Frequently Asked Questions for HW 1 will be

posted on piazza

• Reading - Szeliski: 4.1

What have we learned so far?
• Light and color
– What an image records
• Filtering in spatial domain
• Filtering = weighted sum of neighboring pixels
• Smoothing, sharpening, measuring texture
• Filtering in frequency domain
• Filtering = change frequency of the input image
• Denoising, sampling, image compression
• Image pyramid and template matching
• Filtering = a way to find a template
• Image pyramids for coarse-to-fine search and multi-
scale detection
• Edge detection
• Canny edge = smooth -> derivative -> thin ->
threshold -> link
This module:
Correspondence and Alignment
• Correspondence:
matching points, patches, edges, or regions across
images

Slide credit: Derek Hoiem

This module:
Correspondence and Alignment
• Alignment/registration:
solving the transformation that makes two things
match better

Slide credit: Derek Hoiem

The three biggest problems in
computer vision?
1. Registration

2. Registration

3. Registration
Takeo Kanade (CMU)
Example: automatic panoramas

Credit: Matt Brown

Example: fitting an 2D shape template

Slide from Silvio Savarese

Example: fitting a 3D object model

Slide from Silvio Savarese

Example: estimating “fundamental matrix” that
corresponds two views

Slide from Silvio Savarese

Example: tracking points

x x
x

frame 0 frame 22 frame 49

Today’s class
• What is interest point?

• Corner detection

• Handling scale and orientation

• Feature matching
Why extract features?
• Motivation: panorama stitching
• We have two images – how do we combine them?
Why extract features?
• Motivation: panorama stitching
• We have two images – how do we combine them?

Step 1: extract features

Step 2: match features
Why extract features?
• Motivation: panorama stitching
• We have two images – how do we combine them?

Step 1: extract features

Step 2: match features
Step 3: align images
Image matching

by Diva Sian

by swashford
Harder case

by Diva Sian by scgbt

Harder still?
Answer below (look for tiny colored squares…)

NASA Mars Rover images

with SIFT feature matches
Applications
• Keypoints are used for:
• Image alignment
• 3D reconstruction
• Motion tracking
• Robot navigation
• Indexing and database retrieval
• Object recognition
Advantages of local features
Locality
• features are local, so robust to occlusion and clutter
Quantity
• hundreds or thousands in a single image
Distinctiveness:
• can differentiate a large database of objects
Efficiency
• real-time performance achievable
Overview of Keypoint Matching
1. Find a set of
distinctive key-
A1 B3 points
2. Define a region
around each
A2 A3 keypoint
B2
3. Extract and
B1
normalize the
region content
fA fB
4. Compute a local
descriptor from the
normalized region
d ( f A, fB )  T
5. Match local
descriptors
K. Grauman, B. Leibe
Goals for Keypoints

Detect points that are repeatable and distinctive

Key trade-offs A1 B3

A2 A3
B2
B1

Detection

More Repeatable More Points

Robust detection Robust to occlusion
Precise localization Works with less texture

Description

More Distinctive More Flexible

Minimize wrong matches Robust to expected variations
Maximize correct matches
Choosing interest points
Where would you tell
your friend to meet
you?
Choosing interest points
Where would you tell
your friend to meet
you?
 Corner Detection: Basic Idea
• How does the window change when you shift it?
• Shifting the window in any direction causes a big
change

“flat” region: “edge”: “corner”:

no change in all no change along the significant change in
directions edge direction all directions
Credit: S. Seitz, D. Frolova, D. Simakov
 Harris corner detection: the math
Consider shifting the window W by (u,v)
• how do the pixels in W change?
W
• compare each pixel before and after by
summing up the squared differences (SSD)
• this defines an SSD “error” E(u,v):
Small motion assumption
Taylor Series expansion of I:

If the motion (u,v) is small, then first order approximation is good

Plugging this into the formula on the previous slide…

Harris corner detection: the math

Using the small motion assumption,

W
replace I with a linear approximation
(Shorthand: )
 Corner detection: the math

• Thus, E(u,v) is locally approximated as a quadratic form

The second moment matrix
The surface E(u,v) is locally approximated by a quadratic form.

Let’s try to understand its shape.

 E(u,v)

Horizontal edge:
v
u
 E(u,v)

Vertical edge:
v
u
 General case
The shape of H tells us something about the distribution
of gradients around a pixel
We can visualize H as an ellipse with axis lengths
determined by the eigenvalues of H and orientation
determined by the eigenvectors of H
max, min : eigenvalues of H
Ellipse equation: direction of the
fastest change
u 
[u v] H    const direction of the

v 
slowest change

(max)-1/2
(min)-1/2
 Quick eigenvalue/eigenvector
review
The eigenvectors of a matrix A are the vectors x that satisfy:

The scalar  is the eigenvalue corresponding to x

• The eigenvalues are found by solving:

• In our case, A = H is a 2x2 matrix, so we have

• The solution:

Once you know , you find x by solving

Corner detection: the math

xmin

xmax

Eigenvalues and eigenvectors of H

• Define shift directions with the smallest and largest change in error
• xmax = direction of largest increase in E
• max = amount of increase in direction xmax
• xmin = direction of smallest increase in E
• min = amount of increase in direction xmin
Corner detection: the math
How are max, xmax, min, and xmin relevant for feature detection?
• What’s our feature scoring function?
Corner detection: the math
How are max, xmax, min, and xmin relevant for feature detection?
• What’s our feature scoring function?
Want E(u,v) to be large for small shifts in all directions
• the minimum of E(u,v) should be large, over all unit vectors [u v]
• this minimum is given by the smaller eigenvalue (min) of H
 Interpreting the eigenvalues
Classification of image points using eigenvalues of M:

2 “Edge”
2 >> 1 “Corner”
1 and 2 are large,
1 ~  2 ;
E increases in all
directions

1 and 2 are small;

E is almost constant “Flat” “Edge”
in all directions region 1 >> 2

1
Corner detection summary
Here’s what you do
• Compute the gradient at each point in the image
• Create the H matrix from the entries in the gradient
• Compute the eigenvalues.
• Find points with large response (min > threshold)
• Choose those points where min is a local maximum as features
Corner detection summary
Here’s what you do
• Compute the gradient at each point in the image
• Create the H matrix from the entries in the gradient
• Compute the eigenvalues.
• Find points with large response (min > threshold)
• Choose those points where min is a local maximum as features
The Harris operator
min is a variant of the “Harris operator” for feature detection

• The trace is the sum of the diagonals, i.e., trace(H) = h11 + h22
• Very similar to min but less expensive (no square root)
• Called the “Harris Corner Detector” or “Harris Operator”
• Lots of other detectors, this is one of the most popular
The Harris operator

Harris
operator
Harris detector example
f value (red high, blue low)
Threshold (f > value)
Find local maxima of f
Harris features (in red)
Weighting the derivatives
• In practice, using a simple window W doesn’t work
too well

• Instead, we’ll weight each derivative value based

on its distance from the center pixel
 Harris Detector – Responses [Harris88]

Effect: A very precise corner

detector.
Harris Detector – Responses [Harris88]
Harris Detector: Invariance
Properties
• Rotation

Ellipse rotates but its shape (i.e. eigenvalues)

remains the same

Corner response is invariant to image rotation

 Harris Detector: Invariance
Properties
• Affine intensity change: I  aI + b
 Only derivatives are used =>
invariance to intensity shift I  I + b
 Intensity scale: I  a I

R R
threshold

x (image coordinate) x (image coordinate)

Partially invariant to affine intensity change
Harris Detector: Invariance
Properties
•Scaling

Corner

All points will be

classified as edges

Not invariant to scaling

Scale invariant detection
Suppose you’re looking for corners

Key idea: find scale that gives local maximum of f

• in both position and scale
• One definition of f: the Harris operator
Automatic Scale Selection

f ( I i1im ( x,  ))  f ( I i1im ( x,  ))

How to find corresponding patch sizes?

K. Grauman, B. Leibe
Automatic Scale Selection
• Function responses for increasing scale (scale signature)

f ( I i1im ( x,  )) f ( I i1im ( x,  ))

K. Grauman, B. Leibe
Automatic Scale Selection
• Function responses for increasing scale (scale signature)

f ( I i1im ( x,  )) f ( I i1im ( x,  ))

K. Grauman, B. Leibe
Automatic Scale Selection
• Function responses for increasing scale (scale signature)

f ( I i1im ( x,  )) f ( I i1im ( x,  ))

K. Grauman, B. Leibe
Automatic Scale Selection
• Function responses for increasing scale (scale signature)

f ( I i1im ( x,  )) f ( I i1im ( x,  ))

K. Grauman, B. Leibe
Automatic Scale Selection
• Function responses for increasing scale (scale signature)

f ( I i1im ( x,  )) f ( I i1im ( x,  ))

K. Grauman, B. Leibe
Automatic Scale Selection
• Function responses for increasing scale (scale signature)

f ( I i1im ( x,  )) f ( I i1im ( x,  ))

K. Grauman, B. Leibe
Implementation
• Instead of computing f for larger and larger
windows, we can implement using a fixed window
size with a Gaussian pyramid

(sometimes need to create in-

between levels, e.g. a ¾-size image)
What Is A Useful Signature Function?
• Difference-of-Gaussian = “blob” detector

K. Grauman, B. Leibe
Difference-of-Gaussian (DoG)

- =

K. Grauman, B. Leibe
DoG – Efficient Computation
• Computation in Gaussian scale pyramid

Sampling with
step s4 =2

1 s
Original image
 2 4
s

K. Grauman, B. Leibe
Find local maxima in position-scale
space of Difference-of-Gaussian
s5

s4

Lxx ( )  L yy ( ) s3

s2

 List of
(x, y, s)
s

K. Grauman, B. Leibe
Results: Difference-of-Gaussian

K. Grauman, B. Leibe
Orientation Normalization
[Lowe, SIFT, 1999]

• Compute orientation histogram

• Select dominant orientation
• Normalize: rotate to fixed orientation

0 2p
T. Tuytelaars, B. Leibe
Maximally Stable Extremal Regions [Matas ‘02]

• Based on Watershed segmentation algorithm

• Select regions that stay stable over a large
parameter range

K. Grauman, B. Leibe
Example Results: MSER

73 K. Grauman, B. Leibe
Available at a web site near you…
• For most local feature detectors, executables are
available online:
– http://www.robots.ox.ac.uk/~vgg/research/affine
– http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~lowe/keypoints/
– http://www.vision.ee.ethz.ch/~surf

K. Grauman, B. Leibe
Two minutes break
Local Descriptors
• The ideal descriptor should be
– Robust
– Distinctive
– Compact
– Efficient

• Most available descriptors focus on edge/gradient

information
– Capture texture information
– Color rarely used

K. Grauman, B. Leibe
Scale Invariant Feature Transform
Basic idea:
• Take 16x16 square window around detected feature
• Compute edge orientation (angle of the gradient - 90) for each pixel
• Throw out weak edges (threshold gradient magnitude)
• Create histogram of surviving edge orientations

0 2
angle histogram

Adapted from slide by David Lowe

SIFT descriptor
Full version
• Divide the 16x16 window into a 4x4 grid of cells (2x2 case shown below)
• Compute an orientation histogram for each cell
• 16 cells * 8 orientations = 128 dimensional descriptor

Adapted from slide by David Lowe

Local Descriptors: SIFT
Descriptor

Histogram of oriented
gradients
• Captures important texture
information
• Robust to small translations /
affine deformations
[Lowe, ICCV 1999]
K. Grauman, B. Leibe
Details of Lowe’s SIFT algorithm
• Run DoG detector
– Find maxima in location/scale space
– Remove edge points
• Find all major orientations
– Bin orientations into 36 bin histogram
• Weight by gradient magnitude
• Weight by distance to center (Gaussian-weighted mean)
– Return orientations within 0.8 of peak
• Use parabola for better orientation fit
• For each (x,y,scale,orientation), create descriptor:
– Sample 16x16 gradient mag. and rel. orientation
– Bin 4x4 samples into 4x4 histograms
– Threshold values to max of 0.2, divide by L2 norm
– Final descriptor: 4x4x8 normalized histograms

Lowe IJCV 2004

SIFT Example

sift
sift

868 SIFT features

Feature matching
Given a feature in I1, how to find the best match in I2?
1. Define distance function that compares two descriptors
2. Test all the features in I2, find the one with min distance
Feature distance
How to define the difference between two features f1, f2?
• Simple approach: L2 distance, ||f1 - f2 ||
• can give good scores to ambiguous (incorrect) matches

f1 f2

I1 I2
Feature distance
How to define the difference between two features f1, f2?
• Better approach: ratio distance = ||f1 - f2 || / || f1 - f2’ ||
• f2 is best SSD match to f1 in I2
• f2’ is 2nd best SSD match to f1 in I2
• gives large values for ambiguous matches

f1 f2' f2

I1 I2
Feature matching example

51 matches
Feature matching example

58 matches
 Evaluating the results
How can we measure the performance of a feature matcher?

50
75
200

feature distance
 True/false positives
How can we measure the performance of a feature matcher?
50
true match
75
200
false match

feature distance

The distance threshold affects performance

• True positives = # of detected matches that are correct
• Suppose we want to maximize these—how to choose threshold?
• False positives = # of detected matches that are incorrect
• Suppose we want to minimize these—how to choose threshold?
 Evaluating the results
How can we measure the performance of a feature matcher?

0.7

true
# true positives
positive
# correctly matched features (positives) rate
“recall”

0 0.1 false positive rate 1

# false positives
# incorrectly matched features (negatives)
1 - “precision”
 Evaluating the results
How can we measure the performance of a feature matcher?

ROC curve (“Receiver Operator Characteristic”)

1

0.7

true
# true positives
positive
# correctly matched features (positives) rate
“recall”

0 0.1 false positive rate 1

# false positives
# incorrectly matched features (negatives)
1 - “precision”
Matching SIFT Descriptors
• Nearest neighbor (Euclidean distance)
• Threshold ratio of nearest to 2nd nearest descriptor

Lowe IJCV 2004

SIFT Repeatability

Lowe IJCV 2004

SIFT Repeatability
SIFT Repeatability

Lowe IJCV 2004

 Local Descriptors: SURF
• Fast approximation of SIFT idea
 Efficient computation by 2D box filters &
integral images
 6 times faster than SIFT
 Equivalent quality for object identification

• GPU implementation available

Many other efficient descriptors  Feature extraction @ 200Hz
are also available (detector + descriptor, 640×480 img)
 http://www.vision.ee.ethz.ch/~surf

[Bay, ECCV’06], [Cornelis, CVGPU’08]

K. Grauman, B. Leibe
Local Descriptors: Shape Context
Count the number of points inside
each bin, e.g.:

Count = 4

...
Count = 10

Log-polar binning: more

precision for nearby points,
more flexibility for farther
points.

Belongie & Malik, ICCV 2001

K. Grauman, B. Leibe
Local Descriptors: Geometric Blur

Compute edges
at four
orientations
Extract a patch
in each channel

~ Apply spatially varying

blur and sub-sample
Example descriptor
(Idealized signal)

Berg & Malik, CVPR 2001

K. Grauman, B. Leibe
 Choosing a detector
• What do you want it for?
– Precise localization in x-y: Harris
– Good localization in scale: Difference of Gaussian
– Flexible region shape: MSER

• Best choice often application dependent

– Harris-/Hessian-Laplace/DoG work well for many natural categories
– MSER works well for buildings and printed things

• Why choose?
– Get more points with more detectors

• There have been extensive evaluations/comparisons

– [Mikolajczyk et al., IJCV’05, PAMI’05]
– All detectors/descriptors shown here work well
Comparison of Keypoint
Detectors

Tuytelaars Mikolajczyk 2008

Choosing a descriptor
• Again, need not stick to one

• For object instance recognition or stitching, SIFT or

variant is a good choice
 Recent advances in interest points

Features from Accelerated Segment Test, ECCV 06

Binary feature descriptors

• BRIEF: Binary Robust Independent Elementary Features, ECCV 10
• ORB (Oriented FAST and Rotated BRIEF), CVPR 11
• BRISK: Binary robust invariant scalable keypoints, ICCV 11
• Freak: Fast retina keypoint, CVPR 12
• LIFT: Learned Invariant Feature Transform, ECCV 16
 Things to remember
• Keypoint detection: repeatable
and distinctive
• Corners, blobs, stable regions
• Harris, DoG

• Descriptors: robust and selective

• spatial histograms of orientation
• SIFT
OpenCV demo – Feature Detection
Thank you

• Next class: feature tracking and optical flow