Moment Functions in Image Analysis

Book excerpt: This book is a comprehensive treatise on the theory and applications of moment functions in image analysis. Moment functions are widely used in various realms of computer vision and image processing. Numerous algorithms and techniques have been developed using image moments, in the areas of pattern recognition object identification, three-dimensional object pose estimation, robot sensing, image coding and reconstruction. This book provides a compilation of the theoretical aspects related to different types of moment functions, and their applications in the above areas. The book is organized into two parts. The first part discusses the fundamental concepts behind important moments such as geometric moments, complex moments, Legendre moments, Zernike moments, and moment tensors. Most of the commonly used properties of moment functions and the mathematical framework for the derivation of basic theorems and results are discussed in detail. This includes the derivation of moment invariants, implementation aspects of moments, transform properties, and fast methods for computing the moment functions for both binary and gray-level images. The second part presents the key application areas of moments such as pattern recognition, object identification, image-based pose estimation, edge detection, clustering, segmentation, coding and reconstruction. Important algorithms in each of these areas are discussed. A comprehensive list of bibliographical references on image moments is also included.