Thermophysical affine invariants from IR imagery for object recognition

An important issue in developing a model-based vision approach is the specification of features that are: (a) invariant to viewing and scene conditions, and also (b) specific, i.e., the feature must have different values for different classes of objects. We formulate a new approach for establishing invariant features. Our approach considers not just surface reflection and surface geometry, but it also takes into account internal object composition and state which affect images sensed in the non-visible spectrum. This new type of invariance is called thermophysical invariance. The approach is based on a physics-based model that is derived from the principle of the conservation of energy applied at the surface of the imaged object