Patent attributes
A configured machine performs image matching and retrieval of natural images that may depict logos. The machine generates and uses color-localized spatial masks, which may be computationally less expensive than spatial verification techniques. Key points are detected within images that form a reference database of images. Local masks are defined by the machine around each key point based on the scale and orientation of the key point. To utilize color information presented in logo images, ordered color histograms may be extracted by the machine from locally masked regions of each image. A cascaded index may then be constructed for both visual descriptors and color histograms. For faster matching, the cascaded index maps the visual descriptors and color histograms to a list of relevant or similar images. This list may then be ranked to generate relevant matches for an input query image.