Shape Context: A New Descriptor for Shape Matching and Object Recognition

We develop an approach to object recognition based on match(cid:173) ing shapes and using a resulting measure of similarity in a nearest neighbor classifier. The key algorithmic problem here is that of finding pointwise correspondences between an image shape and a stored prototype shape. We introduce a new shape descriptor, the shape context, which makes this possible, using a simple and robust algorithm. The shape context at a point captures the distri(cid:173) bution over relative positions of other shape points and thus sum(cid:173) marizes global shape in a rich, local descriptor. We demonstrate that shape contexts greatly simplify recovery of correspondences between points of two given shapes.