Methods and arrangements for identifying objects

摘要

In some arrangements, product packaging is digitally watermarked over most of its extent to facilitate high-throughput item identification at retail checkouts. Imagery captured by conventional or plenoptic cameras can be processed (e.g., by GPUs) to derive several different perspective-transformed views—further minimizing the need to manually reposition items for identification. Crinkles and other deformations in product packaging can be optically sensed, allowing such surfaces to be virtually flattened to aid identification. Piles of items can be 3D-modelled and virtually segmented into geometric primitives to aid identification, and to discover locations of obscured items. Other data (e.g., including data from sensors in aisles, shelves and carts, and gaze tracking for clues about visual saliency) can be used in assessing identification hypotheses about an item. Logos may be identified and used—or ignored—in product identification. A great variety of other features and arrangements are also detailed.

主权项

1. A method of identifying a retail product, based at least in part on assessing correspondence between image recognition features associated with the retail product and image recognition features associated with a collection of reference products, the method including the acts:
receiving plural recognition features derived from imagery associated with the retail product; using a hardware processor configured with software, distinguishing a subset of the received features that are associated with a logo, said logo being present on plural of said reference products; and taking an action in response to said distinguishing, wherein said action comprises at least one of:
(a) providing, via a user interface of a camera-equipped portable device that captured said imagery of the retail product, information indicating that the camera should be moved further away from the product, so as to capture a wider field of view;(b) weighting said subset of received features less than other of the received features, in determining a match between the retail product and one of said reference products;(c) disregarding said subset of received features in determining a match between the retail product and one of said reference products;(d) disregarding features other than said subset of features, and identifying plural reference products having said logo; or(e) treating said determined subset of received features differently than others of the received features, in identifying one or more reference products.