Real-time 100 object recognition system

A real-time vision system is described that can recognize 100 complex three-dimensional objects. In contrast to traditional strategies that rely on object geometry and local image features, the present system is founded on the concept of appearance matching. Appearance manifolds of the 100 objects were automatically learned using a computer-controlled turntable. The entire learning process was completed in 1 day. A recognition loop has been implemented that performs scene change detection, image segmentation, region normalizations, and appearance matching, in less than 1 second. The hardware used by the recognition system includes no more than a CCD color camera and a workstation. The real-time capability and interactive nature of the system have allowed numerous observers to test its performance. To quantify performance, we have conducted controlled experiments on recognition and pose estimation. The recognition rate was found to be 100% and object pose was estimated with a mean absolute error of 2.02 degrees and standard deviation of 1.67 degrees.