Real-Time Extraction of Maximally Stable Extremal Regions on an FPGA

This paper describes the implementation of a realtime maximally stable extremal region (MSER) detector. In order to reach real-time performance, both algorithmic and memory issues have been addressed. The union-find algorithm, which is the heart of the MSER detector, is extended to create linked regions that significantly decrease the time to extract MSERs. Hash indexed memory structures are used to locate stored regions fast while keeping the amount of stored data low. The design is verified by including it in a demonstrator circuit. Timing and memory requirements are presented for the demonstrator and as a function of image resolution