Efficient template matching for multi-channel images

Template matching is a computationally intensive problem aimed at locating a template within a image. When dealing with images having more than one channel, the computational burden becomes even more dramatic. For this reason, in this paper we investigate on a methodology to speed-up template matching on multi-channel images without deteriorating the outcome of the search. In particular, we propose a fast, exhaustive technique based on the Zero-mean Normalized Cross-Correlation (ZNCC) inspired from previous work related to grayscale images. Experimental testing performed over thousands of template matching instances demonstrates the efficiency of our proposal. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.