Local feature point extraction for quantum images

Abstract

Quantum image processing has been a hot issue in the last decade. However, the lack of the quantum feature extraction method leads to the limitation of quantum image understanding. In this paper, a quantum feature extraction framework is proposed based on the novel enhanced quantum representation of digital images. Based on the design of quantum image addition and subtraction operations and some quantum image transformations, the feature points could be extracted by comparing and thresholding the gradients of the pixels. Different methods of computing the pixel gradient and different thresholds can be realized under this quantum framework. The feature points extracted from quantum image can be used to construct quantum graph. Our work bridges the gap between quantum image processing and graph analysis based on quantum mechanics.