Methods for object recognition and related arrangements

摘要

Methods and arrangements involving portable user devices such smartphones and wearable electronic devices are disclosed, as well as other devices and sensors distributed within an ambient environment. Some arrangements enable a user to perform an object recognition process in a computationally- and time-efficient manner. Other arrangements enable users and other entities to, either individually or cooperatively, register or enroll physical objects into one or more object registries on which an object recognition process can be performed. Still other arrangements enable users and other entities to, either individually or cooperatively, associate registered or enrolled objects with one or more items of metadata. A great variety of other features and arrangements are also detailed.

主权项

1. An image processing method for generating a first non-realistic 2D symmetric silhouette from model data that defines a 3D exterior surface corresponding to a physical reference object, the model data comprising data stored in an electronic memory that identifies a 3D position for each of plural model points on said surface, the resulting non-realistic 2D symmetric silhouette being useful in identifying an unknown physical object from imagery thereof, the method comprising the acts:
identifying, with one or more hardware processors, a dominant plane P for the 3D surface defined by the model data, said identifying act comprising (a) identifying a plane tangent to said 3D surface that contains a greatest number of model points, or (b) identifying a plane tangent to said 3D surface that contains three or more of said model points and spans a largest area; determining, with one or more hardware processors, a primary reference axis about which the model data should be rotated, said primary reference axis passing through the modeled object and being perpendicular to the dominant plane P; and estimating, with one or more hardware processors, said first non-realistic 2D symmetric silhouette of the reference object based on rotation of the model data, or a viewpoint, about the primary reference axis, said estimating being based on plural depictions of the object viewed from an orbit around the object and in a plane parallel to the dominant plane P; wherein said symmetric silhouette does not match any silhouette of said physical reference object.