Structure tensor of colour quaternion image representations for invariant feature extraction

Abstract

Colour image representation using real quaternions has shown to be very useful for linear and morphological colour filtering. This paper deals with the extension of first derivatives-based structure tensor for various quaternionic colour image representations. Classical corner and edge features are obtained from eigenvalues of the quaternionic colour structure tensors. We study the properties of invariance of the quaternion colour spatial derivatives and their robustness for feature extraction on practical examples. © 2009 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.