Patent ID: 8155451

Claim:
A matching apparatus for comparing a reference object with a compared object and determining similarity between both the objects, comprising: mapping means that maps feature points extracted from the objects to a one-dimensional space by bijection for developing data elements of the objects on the one-dimensional space; pairing means that searches for a feature point of the compared object existing the most nearest to a feature point of the reference object on the one-dimensional space and creates a pair set of pairs of the feature point of the reference object and the feature points of the compared object; pair extracting means that creates a partial pair set obtained by partly extracting the pairs from the pair set in small order of a pair distance between the feature points forming the pair; rating-scale calculating means that calculates a rating scale between the reference object and the compared object on the basis of the pair distance of the pair belonging to the partial pair set; and determining means that determines similarity between the reference object and the compared object on the basis of the rating scale, wherein the pair extracting means creates a partial pair set obtained by extracting the pair having the pair distance not more than a predetermined threshold from the pair set, and the rating-scale calculating means calculates a sum S 1 of the pair distance of the pair belonging to the partial pair set, further calculates a value S 2 obtained by multiplying a predetermined weight value to the number of pairs non-belonging to the partial pair set, and divides a sum S 1 +S 2 of the sum S 1 and the value S 2 by the total number of pairs in the pair set, thereby calculating the rating scale.