Patent ID: 7139432

Claim:
A method for determining the presence of an object of interest in a target image, the method comprising: mapping a template image discrete curve to a mapped template image discrete curve using a mapping operator; acquiring the target image; determining a target image discrete curve from the target image, wherein the target image discrete curve corresponds to a respective object in the target image, and wherein said determining the target image discrete curve from the target image comprises: determining an initial target image discrete curve from the target image; and mapping the initial target image discrete curve to a mapped target image discrete curve using the mapping operator, wherein the mapped target image discrete curve comprises the target image discrete curve; performing shape matching on the mapped target image discrete curve and the mapped template image discrete curve, wherein the mapped template image discrete curve corresponds to the object of interest, wherein said performing shape matching computes a distance for the mapped target image discrete curve relative to the mapped template image discrete curve; and generating pattern matching results based on the distances.