Patent attributes
In an example embodiment, an image based vehicle detection and measuring apparatus that employs an accelerated, structured, search method is described for quickly finding the extrema of a multivariable function. The input domain of the function is determined. The method exploits information as it becomes available, calculating a best possible value with the information available so far, and terminating further evaluation when the best possible value does not exceed the extreme value found so far. Ordering and best guess schemes are added to the best possible value idea to accelerate it further. The method is applied to speed up an image processing problem, an example of which is given, but has general application, for example, in fields such as vehicle detection.