A theory of image matching

A theoretical framework is presented in which windowed Fourier phase (WFP) is introduced as the primary matching primitive. Zero-crossings and peaks correspond to special values in the phase profile. The WFP is quasi-linear, dense and its spatial period and slope are controlled by the channel scale. This framework has the following important characteristics: matching primitives are available almost everywhere to convey dense disparity information in every channel, either coarse or fine; the false target problem is virtually eliminated; matching is easier, uniform and can be performed by a network suitable for parallel computer architecture; and matching is fast since very few iterations are needed. In fact, the WFP is so informative that the original signal can be uniquely determined up to a multiplicative constant by the WFP in any one channel. The use of phase as the matching primitive is also supported by some existing psychophysical and neurophysiological studies. An implementation of the proposed theory has shown good results from images of random dots and natural scenes