ADVANCES AND APPLICATIONS OF TEMPLATE MATCHING IN IMAGE ANALYSIS

Abstract Template matching corresponds to an old topic in the field of pattern recognition and image analysis with several important applications in many different fields. Many different algorithms and methodologies have been proposed to solve the problem, and several optimization techniques have been developed to speed up the search. In this short chapter, we will briefly revisit the basic concepts associated with the template matching problem. We will also provide some indicative applications and discuss some different constraints existing in the statement and solution of the problem. There is an abundant literature concerning template matching and its applications in the field, so in order to restrict ourselves to a specific number of pages, we will restrict the analysis to methodologies that we have been working with during the last years inside our research group. Another easy way to restrain the number of references is to include those corresponding to the assembled list of problems stated at the end of this chapter. The chapter is organized as follows. In the next section, we will briefly visit the problem of template matching in images. In Section 3, we will take a brief look at the three different methodologies under consideration: compressive, features, and advanced modeling. Some options concerning the choice of features will be discussed in Section 4. In Section 5, we will consider three different constraints associated with the problem. Then, we will revisit some applications in Section 6 and frame some conclusions in Section 7. Finally, in Section 8, we will state a list of open problems.