Visual description and recognition of mechanical tools with a silhouette-based approach

In this paper we propose an original framework for the description and the subsequent recognition of objects of limited size. Although of general applicability, the framework is presented here as a way to trace different yet similar metal tools employed in the mechanical constructions industry. For the purpose of object description, time-varying silhouettes of the object are acquired under turntable motion and collated into a single image. The resulting footprint matrix represents the object in both a compact and effective way. Visual matching of footprint matrices is carried out with a computationally efficient algorithm that is organized into three distinct levels so as to benefit of a progressive suppression of the irrelevant information.