Patent ID: 8644617

Claim:
A method of processing images, comprising: processing an image comprising a plurality of pixels to determine if at least one pixel is a salient pixel or a non-salient pixel wherein the salient pixel is either an edge pixel or a corner pixel based on a first categorization technique wherein the first categorization technique comprises determining if a phase value for the pixel satisfies a phase congruency criteria; and if one pixel is categorized as the non-salient pixel by the first categorization technique, then determining if the one pixel should be classified as the salient pixel based on only a first phase congruency component of the phase congruency value for the one pixel, wherein the phase congruency value comprises at least the first phase congruency component that comprises a local energy of the pixel and the phase congruency value comprises a second phase congruency component comprises the sum of the amplitudes of the Fourier components of the image at the location of the pixel.