Patent ID: 8532391

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for recognizing a feature of an image independently of the orientation or scale of the image, the method comprising: receiving an image; identifying a feature within the image; performing a principal component analysis (PCA) operation on the feature to determine an orientation of a primary component of the feature and a secondary component of the feature, wherein the PCA operation is performed while source data for the image is retained; and recognizing the feature by: dividing the feature into two or more sub-features, selecting a given sub-feature from the two or more sub-features, performing a PCA operation on the given sub-feature to determine a primary component of the given sub-feature and a secondary component of the given sub-feature, analyzing the primary component of the given sub-feature and the secondary component of the given sub-feature, and recursively dividing the sub-feature into smaller sub-features until the feature is recognized.