Object localization using color, texture and shape

We address the problem of localizing objects using color, texture and shape. Given a handrawn sketch for querying an object shape, and its color and texture, the algorithm automatically searches the database images for objects which meet the query attributes. The database images do not need to be presegmented or annotated. The proposed algorithm operates in two stages. In the first stage, we use local texture and color features to find a small number of candidate images, and identify regions in the candidate images which share similar texture and color as the query example. To speed up the processing, the texture and color features are directly extracted from the Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) compressed domain. In the second stage, we use a deformable template matching method to match the query shape to the image edges at the locations which possess the desired texture and color attributes. This algorithm is different from the other content-based image retrieval algorithms in that: (i) no presegmentation of the database images is needed, and (ii) the color and texture features are directly extracted from the compressed images. Experimental results show that substantial computational savings can be achieved utilizing multiple image cues.