Method and apparatus for image processing to avoid counting shelf edge promotional labels when counting product labels

1. A method for identifying edge regions in an image, comprising:

receiving an image containing at least one edge region, the edge region containing patterned content;

identifying, using a processor, individual occurrences of the patterned content by comparing sections of the image to a reference image of the patterned content;

demarcating, using the processor, each identified individual occurrence of the patterned content in the image with a commonly oriented geometric pattern having at least one corner associated with a first side of the corresponding pattern content and at least one corner associated with a second side of the corresponding patterned content; and

splitting, using the processor, the corners into first and second sets, with the first set indicative of a first boundary of an edge and the second set indicative of a second boundary of the edge; and

generating, using the processor, an indication of the first and second boundaries to enable exclusion of the edge from a recognition process.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein demarcating each individual occurrence of the patterned content with the commonly oriented geometric pattern comprises demarcating each individual occurrence of the patterned content with an estimated quadrilateral.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein comparing sections of the image to the reference image of the patterned content comprises:

determining interest point matches between the image and the reference image; and

applying a geometric model fitting and verification algorithm to estimate a quadrilateral based on the interest point matches.

4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising fitting a first line to define the first boundary and a second line to define the second boundary, and wherein a space between the first line and the second line is identified as the edge.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising clustering corners of different occurrences of the patterned content by selecting a kernel bandwidth in a horizontal direction of the image that is larger than a kernel bandwidth in a vertical direction of the image.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein clustering the corners further comprises associating corners to a cluster based on minimizing a distance measure between vertical co-ordinates of the corners and a center of the cluster.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein generating the indication of the first and second boundaries comprises generating a processed image having the edge obscured.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein generating the indication of the first and second boundaries comprises generating metadata that identifies the edge in the image, wherein the recognition process is to use the metadata to avoid analyzing the edge.

9. A product shelf image processing system, comprising:

a camera that captures an image containing at least one product shelf having an edge upon which shelf edge content is present; and

a processor to:

receive the image from the camera;

identify individual occurrences of the shelf edge content by comparing sections of the image to at least one reference image of the shelf edge content;

demarcate each identified individual occurrence of the shelf edge content in the image with a commonly oriented geometric pattern having at least a first corner and a second corner opposing the first corner; and

split the corners into first and second sets, with the first set indicative a first boundary of the shelf edge and the second set indicative of a second boundary of the shelf edge; and

generate an indication of the first and second boundaries to enable exclusion of the edge from a recognition process.

10. The product shelf image processing system of claim 9 , wherein the processor is to not count shelf edge content as product labels while it recognizes and to count product labels in the image.

11. The product shelf image processing system of claim 9 , where the processor is to determine interest point matches between the image and the reference image, and apply a geometric model fitting and verification algorithm to estimate a quadrilateral based on the interest point matches.

12. The product shelf image processing system of claim 9 , wherein generating the indication of the first and second boundaries comprises generating a processed image having the edge obscured.

13. The product shelf image processing system of claim 9 , wherein generating the indication of the first and second boundaries comprises generating metadata that identifies the edge in the image, wherein the recognition processing is to use the metadata to avoid analyzing the edge.