LAUSR

Modern geological techniques have resulted in vast and growing databases of digital images and video sequences of rocks, which are available for the use of researchers. The number of database images continues to increase exponentially, creating a need for techniques that will enable the automation of data set management. Desired techniques include query by image, a topic that has been extensively elaborated on in the literature recently. Unfortunately, using such techniques in the geological sciences has been very sporadic and insufficient. This paper presents the evaluation of characteristic local features within rock images for tracking objects on images or video sequences. It also discusses the possibilities for using selected local feature descriptors for content-based image retrieval (CBIR) in the area of geological sciences. The evaluation was performed for the Speeded Up Robust Features (SURF), Binary Robust Invariant Scalable Keypoints (BRISK), Harris–Stephens Algorithm (HSA), Minimum Eigenvalue Algorithm (MEA), and Features from Accelerated Segment Test algorithm (FAST) methods, which are widely known and appreciated in the computer vision field. These methods were analysed for their application to microscopic images of rocks. Five functional cases of geological grain tracking were investigated, based on a selected non-transformed query image, as well as a computer-rotated, acquisitive-rotated, computer-magnified, and an acquisitive-magnified query image. The results demonstrated that these methods can be successfully used for geological applications.