GPU Accelerating Speeded-Up Robust Features

Abstract

Abstract — Many computer vision tasks require interest point detection and description, such as real-time visual navigation. We present a GPU implementation of the recently proposed Speeded-Up Robust Feature extractor [1], currently the state of the art for this task. Robust feature descriptors can give vast improvements in the quality and speed of subsequent steps, but require intensive computation up front that is well-suited to inexpensive graphics hardware. We describe the algorithm’s translation to the GPU in detail, with several novel optimizations, including a new method of computing multi-dimensional parallel prefix sums. It operates at over 30 Hz at HD resolutions with thousands of features and in excess of 70 Hz at SD resolutions. I.