Matching with quantum genetic algorithm and shape contexts

In this paper, we propose to combine the shape context (SC) descriptor with quantum genetic algorithms (QGA) to define a new shape matching and retrieval method. The SC matching method is based on finding the best correspondence between two point sets. The proposed method uses the QGA to find the best configuration of sample points in order to achieve the best possible matching between the two shapes. This combination of SC and QGA leads to a better retrieval results based on our tests. The SC is a very powerful discriminative descriptor which is translation and scale invariant, but weak against rotation and flipping. In our proposed quantum shape context algorithm (QSC), we use the QGA to estimate the best orientation of the target shape to ensure the best matching for rotated and flipped shapes. The experimental results showed that our proposed QSC matching method is much powerful than the classic SC method for the retrieval of shapes with orientation changes.