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Template matching

Template matching is a technique in digital image processing for finding small parts of an image which match a template image. It can be used in manufacturing as a part of quality control, a way to navigate a mobile robot, or as a way to detect edges in images.

The main challenges in the template matching task are: occlusion, detection of non-rigid transformations, illumination and background changes, background clutter and scale changes.

Example 

import cv2
import numpy as np
from matplotlib import pyplot as plt

img = cv2.imread('4175.jpg',0)
img2 = img.copy()
template = cv2.imread('sign.jpg',0)
w, h = template.shape[::-1]

# All the 6 methods for comparison in a list
methods = ['cv2.TM_CCOEFF', 'cv2.TM_CCOEFF_NORMED', 'cv2.TM_CCORR',
            'cv2.TM_CCORR_NORMED', 'cv2.TM_SQDIFF', 'cv2.TM_SQDIFF_NORMED']

for meth in methods:
    img = img2.copy()
    method = eval(meth)

    # Apply template Matching
    res = cv2.matchTemplate(img,template,method)
    min_val, max_val, min_loc, max_loc = cv2.minMaxLoc(res)

    # If the method is TM_SQDIFF or TM_SQDIFF_NORMED, take minimum
    if method in [cv2.TM_SQDIFF, cv2.TM_SQDIFF_NORMED]:
        top_left = min_loc
    else:
        top_left = max_loc
    bottom_right = (top_left[0] + w, top_left[1] + h)

    cv2.rectangle(img,top_left, bottom_right, 255, 2)

    plt.subplot(121),plt.imshow(res,cmap = 'gray')
    plt.title('Matching Result'), plt.xticks([]), plt.yticks([])
    plt.subplot(122),plt.imshow(img,cmap = 'gray')
    plt.title('Detected Point'), plt.xticks([]), plt.yticks([])
    plt.suptitle(meth)

    plt.show()

Template Matching with Multiple Objects

In the previous section, we searched image for Messi's face, which occurs only once in the image. Suppose you are searching for an object which has multiple occurrences, cv.minMaxLoc() won't give you all the locations. In that case, we will use thresholding. So in this example, we will use a screenshot of the famous game Mario and we will find the coins in it. 

import cv2 as cv
import numpy as np
from matplotlib import pyplot as plt
img_rgb = cv.imread('mario.png')
img_gray = cv.cvtColor(img_rgb, cv.COLOR_BGR2GRAY)
template = cv.imread('mario_coin.png',0)
w, h = template.shape[::-1]
res = cv.matchTemplate(img_gray,template,cv.TM_CCOEFF_NORMED)
threshold = 0.8
loc = np.where( res >= threshold)
for pt in zip(*loc[::-1]):
    cv.rectangle(img_rgb, pt, (pt[0] + w, pt[1] + h), (0,0,255), 2)
cv.imwrite('res.png',img_rgb)

Projects

Robust Template Matching Using Scale-Adaptive Deep Convolutional Features
https://github.com/kamata1729/robustTemplateMatching
http://www.apsipa.org/proceedings/2017/CONTENTS/papers2017/14DecThursday/TA-02/TA-02.5.pdf

See also

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