Feature Detection and Matching

We explored how to combine OpenCV and Tkinter to make graphical user interfaces (GUIs) for image processing applications in the last chapter. Let us now explore how we can extract useful features from a given image. Feature detection allows us to identify distinguishing points or patterns in an image that serves as the basis of applications like object recognition, image segmentation, pattern matching, etc. In this chapter, we will start with a basic understanding of what image features are. Then we move on to discuss different methods for detecting what we call keypoints in an image. We will then discuss a special algorithm that will allow us to detect corner points in an image. Finally, we will see how to detect the shapes of objects in an image.