Patent ID: 8463047

Claim:
An object descriptor computer system for generating an edge neighborhood descriptor for describing the surrounding of an interest point within an object portion of an image of an object according to the closest edges to the interest point, the system comprising: a memory; a processor coupled with the memory, the processor executing instructions stored on the memory for implementing the following modules: a sector determiner receiving said image and receiving data respective of the location of the interest point within the object portion of the image from an interest point detector, the sector determiner setting the interest point as a seed point for the edge neighborhood descriptor, the sector determiner dividing the image into N radial sectors projecting from the interest point; a closest edge determiner, coupled with said sector determiner, the closest edge determiner receiving at least one binary edge map of the image from an edge detector, said closest edge detector determining for each of said N sectors, the edge pixel closest to said interest point, according to at the least one binary edge map of the image; an edge neighborhood descriptor constructor coupled with said closest edge determiner, the descriptor constructor constructing said edge neighborhood descriptor such that the length of the radius of each of said N sectors is determined according to the distance from said interest point to the edge pixel closest to said interest point within said sector, wherein said edge neighborhood descriptor includes said N sectors; wherein the system employs the edge neighborhood descriptor for characterizing the object portion of the image, which surrounds the interest point, for recognizing an object within the image.