Shape retrieval using triangle-area representation and dynamic space warping

• DOI: 10.1016/j.patcog.2006.12.005
• Publication Date: 2006-12-26T14:08:01Z
• Authors: Naif Alajlan; Ibrahim El Rube; Mohamed S. Kamel; George Freeman
• Keywords: Image warping; Convexity; Dynamic Time Warping; Representation; Scale space

In this paper, we present a shape retrieval method using triangle-area representation for nonrigid shapes with closed contours. The representation utilizes the areas of the triangles formed by the boundary points to measure the convexity/concavity of each point at different scales (or triangle side lengths). This representation is effective in capturing both local and global characteristics of a shape, invariant to translation, rotation, and scaling, and robust against noise and moderate amounts of occlusion. In the matching stage, a dynamic space warping (DSW) algorithm is employed to search efficiently for the optimal (least cost) correspondence between the points of two shapes. Then, a distance is derived based on the optimal correspondence. The performance of our method is demonstrated using four standard tests on two well-known shape databases. The results show the superiority of our method over other recent methods in the literature.