I need a simple and fast way to compare two images for similarity. I.e. I want to get a high value if they contain exactly the same thing but may have some slightly different background and may be moved / resized by a few pixel.
(More concrete, if that matters: The one picture is an icon and the other picture is a subarea of a screenshot and I want to know if that subarea is exactly the icon or not.)
I have OpenCV at hand but I am still not that used to it.
One possibility I thought about so far: Divide both pictures into 10x10 cells and for each of those 100 cells, compare the color histogram. Then I can set some made up threshold value and if the value I get is above that threshold, I assume that they are similar.
I haven't tried it yet how well that works but I guess it would be good enough. The images are already pretty much similar (in my use case), so I can use a pretty high threshold value.
I guess there are dozens of other possible solutions for this which would work more or less (as the task itself is quite simple as I only want to detect similarity if they are really very similar). What would you suggest?
There are a few very related / similar questions about obtaining a signature/fingerprint/hash from an image:
OpenCV / SURF How to generate a image hash / fingerprint / signature out of the descriptors?
Image fingerprint to compare similarity of many images
Near-Duplicate Image Detection
OpenCV: Fingerprint Image and Compare Against Database.
more, more, more, more, more, more, more
Also, I stumbled upon these implementations which have such functions to obtain a fingerprint:
pHash
imgSeek (GitHub repo) (GPL) based on the paper Fast Multiresolution Image Querying
image-match. Very similar to what I was searching for. Similar to pHash, based on An image signature for any kind of image, Goldberg et al. Uses Python and Elasticsearch.
iqdb
ImageHash. supports pHash.
Image Deduplicator (imagededup). Supports CNN, PHash, DHash, WHash, AHash.
Some discussions about perceptual image hashes: here
A bit offtopic: There exists many methods to create audio fingerprints. MusicBrainz, a web-service which provides fingerprint-based lookup for songs, has a good overview in their wiki. They are using AcoustID now. This is for finding exact (or mostly exact) matches. For finding similar matches (or if you only have some snippets or high noise), take a look at Echoprint. A related SO question is here. So it seems like this is solved for audio. All these solutions work quite good.
A somewhat more generic question about fuzzy search in general is here. E.g. there is locality-sensitive hashing and nearest neighbor search.
Can the screenshot or icon be transformed (scaled, rotated, skewed ...)? There are quite a few methods on top of my head that could possibly help you:
Simple euclidean distance as mentioned by #carlosdc (doesn't work with transformed images and you need a threshold).
(Normalized) Cross Correlation - a simple metrics which you can use for comparison of image areas. It's more robust than the simple euclidean distance but doesn't work on transformed images and you will again need a threshold.
Histogram comparison - if you use normalized histograms, this method works well and is not affected by affine transforms. The problem is determining the correct threshold. It is also very sensitive to color changes (brightness, contrast etc.). You can combine it with the previous two.
Detectors of salient points/areas - such as MSER (Maximally Stable Extremal Regions), SURF or SIFT. These are very robust algorithms and they might be too complicated for your simple task. Good thing is that you do not have to have an exact area with only one icon, these detectors are powerful enough to find the right match. A nice evaluation of these methods is in this paper: Local invariant feature detectors: a survey.
Most of these are already implemented in OpenCV - see for example the cvMatchTemplate method (uses histogram matching): http://dasl.mem.drexel.edu/~noahKuntz/openCVTut6.html. The salient point/area detectors are also available - see OpenCV Feature Detection.
I face the same issues recently, to solve this problem(simple and fast algorithm to compare two images) once and for all, I contribute an img_hash module to opencv_contrib, you can find the details from this link.
img_hash module provide six image hash algorithms, quite easy to use.
Codes example
origin lena
blur lena
resize lena
shift lena
#include <opencv2/core.hpp>
#include <opencv2/core/ocl.hpp>
#include <opencv2/highgui.hpp>
#include <opencv2/img_hash.hpp>
#include <opencv2/imgproc.hpp>
#include <iostream>
void compute(cv::Ptr<cv::img_hash::ImgHashBase> algo)
{
auto input = cv::imread("lena.png");
cv::Mat similar_img;
//detect similiar image after blur attack
cv::GaussianBlur(input, similar_img, {7,7}, 2, 2);
cv::imwrite("lena_blur.png", similar_img);
cv::Mat hash_input, hash_similar;
algo->compute(input, hash_input);
algo->compute(similar_img, hash_similar);
std::cout<<"gaussian blur attack : "<<
algo->compare(hash_input, hash_similar)<<std::endl;
//detect similar image after shift attack
similar_img.setTo(0);
input(cv::Rect(0,10, input.cols,input.rows-10)).
copyTo(similar_img(cv::Rect(0,0,input.cols,input.rows-10)));
cv::imwrite("lena_shift.png", similar_img);
algo->compute(similar_img, hash_similar);
std::cout<<"shift attack : "<<
algo->compare(hash_input, hash_similar)<<std::endl;
//detect similar image after resize
cv::resize(input, similar_img, {120, 40});
cv::imwrite("lena_resize.png", similar_img);
algo->compute(similar_img, hash_similar);
std::cout<<"resize attack : "<<
algo->compare(hash_input, hash_similar)<<std::endl;
}
int main()
{
using namespace cv::img_hash;
//disable opencl acceleration may(or may not) boost up speed of img_hash
cv::ocl::setUseOpenCL(false);
//if the value after compare <= 8, that means the images
//very similar to each other
compute(ColorMomentHash::create());
//there are other algorithms you can try out
//every algorithms have their pros and cons
compute(AverageHash::create());
compute(PHash::create());
compute(MarrHildrethHash::create());
compute(RadialVarianceHash::create());
//BlockMeanHash support mode 0 and mode 1, they associate to
//mode 1 and mode 2 of PHash library
compute(BlockMeanHash::create(0));
compute(BlockMeanHash::create(1));
}
In this case, ColorMomentHash give us best result
gaussian blur attack : 0.567521
shift attack : 0.229728
resize attack : 0.229358
Pros and cons of each algorithm
The performance of img_hash is good too
Speed comparison with PHash library(100 images from ukbench)
If you want to know the recommend thresholds for these algorithms, please check this post(http://qtandopencv.blogspot.my/2016/06/introduction-to-image-hash-module-of.html).
If you are interesting about how do I measure the performance of img_hash modules(include speed and different attacks), please check this link(http://qtandopencv.blogspot.my/2016/06/speed-up-image-hashing-of-opencvimghash.html).
Does the screenshot contain only the icon? If so, the L2 distance of the two images might suffice. If the L2 distance doesn't work, the next step is to try something simple and well established, like: Lucas-Kanade. Which I'm sure is available in OpenCV.
If you want to get an index about the similarity of the two pictures, I suggest you from the metrics the SSIM index. It is more consistent with the human eye. Here is an article about it: Structural Similarity Index
It is implemented in OpenCV too, and it can be accelerated with GPU: OpenCV SSIM with GPU
If you can be sure to have precise alignment of your template (the icon) to the testing region, then any old sum of pixel differences will work.
If the alignment is only going to be a tiny bit off, then you can low-pass both images with cv::GaussianBlur before finding the sum of pixel differences.
If the quality of the alignment is potentially poor then I would recommend either a Histogram of Oriented Gradients or one of OpenCV's convenient keypoint detection/descriptor algorithms (such as SIFT or SURF).
If for matching identical images - code for L2 distance
// Compare two images by getting the L2 error (square-root of sum of squared error).
double getSimilarity( const Mat A, const Mat B ) {
if ( A.rows > 0 && A.rows == B.rows && A.cols > 0 && A.cols == B.cols ) {
// Calculate the L2 relative error between images.
double errorL2 = norm( A, B, CV_L2 );
// Convert to a reasonable scale, since L2 error is summed across all pixels of the image.
double similarity = errorL2 / (double)( A.rows * A.cols );
return similarity;
}
else {
//Images have a different size
return 100000000.0; // Return a bad value
}
Fast. But not robust to changes in lighting/viewpoint etc.
Source
If you want to compare image for similarity,I suggest you to used OpenCV. In OpenCV, there are few feature matching and template matching. For feature matching, there are SURF, SIFT, FAST and so on detector. You can use this to detect, describe and then match the image. After that, you can use the specific index to find number of match between the two images.
Hu invariant moments is very powerful tool to compare two images
Hash functions are used in the undouble library to detect (near-)identical images (disclaimer: I am also the author). This is a simple and fast way to compare two or more images for similarity. It works using a multi-step process of pre-processing the images (grayscaling, normalizing, and scaling), computing the image hash, and the grouping of images based on a threshold value.
Related
I need to recognize images with hand-written numerals with known values. Physical objects with the number are always identical but come in slight variations of positions/scale/lighting. They are about 100 in number, having about 100x500 px in size.
In the first pass, the code should "learn" possible inputs, and then recognize them (classify them as being close to one of the "training" images) when they come again.
I was mostly following the Feature Matching Python-OpenCV tutorial
Input images are analyzed first, keypoints & descriptors are remembered in the orbTrained list:
import cv2
import collections
ORBTrained=collections.namedtuple('ORBTrained',['kp','des','img'])
orbTrained=[]
for img in trainingImgs:
z2=preprocessImg(img)
orb=cv2.ORB_create(nfeatures=400,patchSize=30,edgeThreshold=0)
kp,des=orb.detectAndCompute(z2,None)
orbTrained.append(ORBTrained(kp=kp,des=des,img=z2))
z3=cv2.drawKeypoints(z2,kp,None,color=(0,255,0),flags=0)
A typical result of this first stage looks like this:
Then in the next loop, for each real input image, cycle through all training images to see which is matching the best:
ORBMatch=collections.namedtuple('ORBMatch',['dist','match','train'])
for img in inputImgs:
z2=preprocessNum(img)
orb=cv2.ORB_create(nfeatures=400,patchSize=30,edgeThreshold=0)
kp,des=orb.detectAndCompute(z2,None)
bf=cv2.BFMatcher(cv2.NORM_HAMMING,crossCheck=True)
mm=[]
for train in orbTrained:
m=bf.match(des,train.des)
dist=sum([m_.distance for m_ in m])
mm.append(ORBMatch(dist=dist,match=m,train=train))
# sort matching images based on score
mm.sort(key=lambda m: m.dist)
print([m.dist for m in mm[:5]])
best=mm[0]
best.match.sort(key=lambda x:x.distance) # sort matches in the best match
z3=cv2.drawMatches(z2,kp,best.train.img,best.train.kp,best.match[:50],None,flags=2)
The result I get is nonsensical, and consistently so (only when I run with pixel-identical input, the result is correct):
What is the problem? Am I completely misunderstanding what to do, or do I just need to tune some parameters?
First, are you sure you're not reinventing the wheel by creating your own OCR library? There are many free frameworks, some of which support training with custom character sets.
Second, you should understand what feature matching is. It will find similar small areas, but isn't aware of other feature pairs. It will match similar corners of characters, not the characters itself. You might experiment with larger patchSize so that it covers at least half of the digit.
You can minimize false pairs by running feature detection only on a single digit at a time using thresholding and contours to find character bounds.
If the text isn't rotated, using roation-invariant feature descriptor such as ORB isn't the best option, try rotation-variant descriptor, such as FAST.
According to authors of papers (ORB and ORB-SLAM) ORB is invariant to rotation and scale "in a certain range". May be you should first match for small scale or rotation change.
I am not sure if this falls under the criteria of a proper question, but still, I would like to give it a shot.
I am looking for a library or function that takes two SIFT descriptors in a form of a file (or a matrix) of [number_of_keypoints][feature_0...feature_127] - meaning 128 features per file and allows comparison of images (I am using harris-affine alg. to extract them: http://www.robots.ox.ac.uk/~vgg/research/affine/det_eval_files/extract_features2.tar.gz ).
I am interested in a method that would allow me to find mutual nearest neighbours, that would accept number of keypoints in the neighbourhood and success ratio.
E.g.
Lets say I have two files with keypoints (described by SIFT descriptor) (image_1.sift, image_2.sift). I would like the method to accept: number of keypoints in the neighbourhood, match ratio, where match ratio means in pseudo code:
For each keypoint in image_1
Pick 50 nearest neighbours from image_1 -> List<KeyPoints> neighbours_1
For each keypoint in image_2
Pick 50 nearest neighbours from image_2 -> List<KeyPoints> neighbours_2
int numberOfMatches = 0;
foreach(neighbour in neighbours_1)
{
if(neighbour == neighbours_2.Find(neighbour))
numberOfMatches++;
}
The ratio is number of matches to number keypoints taken into consideration.
For example FindMutualKeypoints(image_1, image_2, 50, 0.7)
It can be c#, java, python or matlab implementation. I don't have much to do with image analysis on regular basis and before I start to write my own implementation, I assumed there probably is one out there already. I am having problem finding the correct terms in English from translation from my mother tongue (looks like the terms are quite different), which is probably the reason, why I could not find it yet.
I think openCV is the way to go.
Here is an example for it: link
It uses SURF descriptors, but you can also use SIFT.
You then call the FLANN matcher which also give you information about the quality of the matches.
I need to improve image quality, from low quality to high hd quality. I am using OpenCV libraries. I experimented a lot with GaussianBlur(), Laplacian(), transformation functions, filter functions etc, but all I could succeed is to convert image to hd resolution and keep the same quality. Is it possible to do this? Do I need to implement my own algorithm or is there a way how it's done? I will really appreciate any kind of help. Thanks in advance.
I used this link for my reference. It has other interesting filters that you can play with.
If you are using C++:
detailEnhance(Mat src, Mat dst, float sigma_s=10, float sigma_r=0.15f)
If you are using python:
dst = cv2.detailEnhance(src, sigma_s=10, sigma_r=0.15)
The variable 'sigma_s' determines how big the neighbourhood of pixels must be to perform filtering.
The variable 'sigma_r' determines how the different colours within the neighbourhood of pixels will be averaged with each other. Its range is from: 0 - 1. A smaller value means similar colors will be averaged out while different colors remain as they are.
Since you are looking for sharpness in the image, I would suggest you keep the kernel as minimum as possible.
Here is the result I obtained for a sample image:
1. Original image:
2. Sharpened image for lower sigma_r value:
3. Sharpened image for higher sigma_r value:
Check the above mentioned link for more information.
How about applying Super Resolution in OpenCV? A reference article with more details can be found here: https://learnopencv.com/super-resolution-in-opencv/
So basically you will need to have the Python dependency opencv-contrib-python installed, together with a working version of opencv-python.
There are different techniques for the Super Resolution in OpenCV you can choose from, including EDSR, ESPCN, FSRCNN, and LapSRN. Code examples in both Python and C++ have been included in the tutorial article as well for easy reference.
A correction is needed
dst = cv2.detailEnhance(src, sigma_s=10, sigma_r=0.15)
using kernel will give error.
+1 to kris stern answer,
If you are looking for practical implementation of super resolution using pretrained model in OpenCV, have a look at below notebook also video describing details.
https://github.com/pankajr141/experiments/blob/master/Reasoning/ComputerVision/super_resolution_enhancing_image_quality_using_pretrained_models.ipynb
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrWIYWO4bac&list=UUplf_LWNn0a9ubnKCZ-95YQ&index=4
Below is a sample code using opencv
model_pretrained = cv2.dnn_superres.DnnSuperResImpl_create()
# setting up the model initialization
model_pretrained.readModel(filemodel_filepath)
model_pretrained.setModel(modelname, scale)
# prediction or upscaling
img_upscaled = model_pretrained.upsample(img_small)
I have 2 images sourceImg, refImg.
I've extracted the features like so:
cv::GoodFeaturesToTrackDetector detector;
std::vector<cv::KeyPoint> sourceKeyPoints, refKeyPoints;
detector.detect(sourceImg, sourceKeyPoints);
detector.detect(refImg, refKeyPoints);
I want to find the translation of an object from refImg to sourceImg. There is no rotation or perspective change, only simple 2d translation. There may be some noise.
findHomography() works fine when both sets have the same number of features extracted, even handling noise quite well.
My question is, what do I do when the number of features differs?
Can someone point me in the right direction regarding DescriptorExtractor and Matching?
Note: I can't use SURF/SIFT for patent reasons.
You could try the FlannBasedMatcherclass from OpenCV. Use this to match descriptors (of any type) and then use the best matches to find your homography.
How do i do a gaussi smoothing in the 3th dimension?
I have this detection pyramid, votes accumulated at four scales. Objects are found at each peak.
I already smoothed each of them in 2d, and reading in my papers that i need to filter the third dimension with a \sigma = 1, which i havent tried before, i am not even sure what it means.
I Figured out how to do it in Matlab, and need something simular in opencv/c++.
Matlab Raw Values:
Matlab Smoothen with M0 = smooth3(M0,'gaussian'); :
Gaussian filters are separable. You apply 1D filter at each dimension as follows:
for (dim = 0; dim < D; dim++)
tensor = gaussian_filter(tensor, dim);
I would recommend OpenCV for an implementation of a gaussian filter (and image processing in general) in C++.
Note that this assumes that your pyramid levels are all of the same size.
You can have your own functions that sample your scale-space pyramid on the fly while convolving the third dimension, but if you have enough memory I believe that it would be faster to scale up your coarser level to have the same size of the finest level.
Long ago (in 2008-2009) I have developed a small C++ template lib to apply some simple transformations and convolution filters. The library's source can be found in the Linderdaum Engine - it has nothing to do with the rest of the engine and does not use any of the engine's features. The license is MIT, so do whatever you want with it.
Take a look into the Linderdaum's source code (http://www.linderdaum.com) at Src/Linderdaum/Images/VolumeLib.*
The function to prepare the kernel is PrepareGaussianFilter() and MakeScalarVolumeConvolution() applies the filter. It is easy to adapt the library for the different data sources because the I/O is implemented using callback functions.