Detection and localization of specular surfaces using image motion cues

Successful identification of specularities in an image can be crucial for an artificial vision system when extracting the semantic content of an image or while interacting with the environment. We developed an algorithm that relies on scale and rotation invariant feature extraction techniques and uses motion cues to detect and localize specular surfaces. Appearance change in feature vectors is used to quantify the appearance distortion on specular surfaces, which has previously been shown to be a powerful indicator for specularity (Doerschner et al. in Curr Biol, 2011). The algorithm combines epipolar deviations (Swaminathan et al. in Lect Notes Comput Sci 2350:508-523, 2002) and appearance distortion, and succeeds in localizing specular objects in computer-rendered and real scenes, across a wide range of camera motions and speeds, object sizes and shapes, and performs well under image noise and blur conditions.