ψðrÞ¼
4α
nþ1
2πðn þ1Þ
p
σ cosð2πf
0
ð2r − 1ÞÞexp
−
ð2r − 1Þ
2
2σ
2
ðn þ1Þ
;
(6)
where n ¼ 3, α ¼ 0.697, f
0
¼ 0.409, and σ
2
¼ 0.561. The
wavelet transform is a convolution of the image’s circular
harmonic function
f
m
ðrÞ¼
Z
2π
0
e
−jmθ
f ðr; θÞdθ; (7)
with the wavelets, which are scaled, and translated
mother wavelets that are shown as
ψ
a;b
ðrÞ¼
1
a
p
ψ
r − b
a
; (8)
where the discrete scaling factor is a ¼ð1∕2Þ
p
, the discrete
translation factor is b ¼ðq∕2Þð1∕2Þ
p
, and p and q are pos-
itive integers. The continuous wavelets such as the cubic
B-spline functions are bandpass filters
[19]
. By adaptively
choosing the appropriate scale a, the wavelet transform
can highlight the local features such as edges in the image.
However, the wavelet moments as defined in Eq. (
5) are
not orthogonal and, therefore, can be used as image fea-
tures for the image description but not for the image
reconstruction. Moreover, the wavelet moments are not
scale invariant. The image must be resized to a fixed size
before computing the wavelet moments
[17,18]
.
3. Orthogonal moments
The orthogonal moments are an expansion of the image
into the orthogonal polynomial bases. The orthogonal
moments are information independent from each other,
allowing the image reconstruction for assessing the quality
of the image description.
A. Rotation-invariant orthogonal moments
The orthogonal polynomials result from the power series
solutions of the ordinary differential equations with the
orthogonality of the polynomials related to the Sturm-
Liouville forms of the differential equations plus the
boundary conditions. They are referred to as the special
functions and are given special names because of their
frequent uses. On the other hand, the orthogonal polyno-
mials can be easily generated using the Gram-Schmidt
orthonormalization, so that there can be an infinite num-
ber of orthogonal polynomials. The well-known orthogo-
nal polynomials include the Jacobi, Hermite, Laguerre,
and Bessel polynomials. The interrelations between
the polynomials exist. For instance, the Gegenbauer,
Legendre, Chebyshev, and Zernike polynomials are special
cases of the Jacobi polynomials, which are the solutions of
the hypergeometric differential equations.
Many orthogonal polynomials are proposed as the bases
for the image analysis. For the 2D expansion of an image
in the polar coordinate system, the radial orthogonal poly-
nomials are the radial basis, and the Fourier kernels
expðjmθÞ are used for the circular harmonic analysis.
As pointed out by Bhatia and Wolf
[20,21]
, for the rotation
invariance in the form, the circular Fourier kernel is a
unique solution to be included as the basis function.
The scale invariance is achieved by using the normalized
radial coordinate.
1. Zernike and Pseudo-Zernike moments
The Zernike moments are orthogonal on the unit circle.
The Zernike radial polynomials play a dominant role
for the aberration characterization in the optical design.
The Zernike moments were proposed in 1980 for image
analysis
[22]
as
A
nm
¼
n þ 1
π
Z
2π
0
Z
1
0
R
nm
ðrÞ expð−jmθÞf ðr; θÞrdrdθ;
(9)
where the Zerni ke radial polynomials are
R
nm
ðrÞ
¼
X
ðn−jmjÞ∕2
s¼0
ð−1Þ
s
ðn − sÞ!
s!ððn þjmjÞ∕2 − sÞ!ððn − jmjÞ∕2 − sÞ!
r
n−2s
;
(10)
where m is the circular harmonic order, and n is the degree
of the Zernike polynomial. The Zernike moments are de-
signed to be presented in the Cartesian coordinate system,
so that the Zernike radial polynomials must not contain
powers of r smaller than the circular harmonic order,
n ≥ jmj and n − jmj are even
[20]
. In the Zernike moments,
each term of the radial power in R
nm
ðrÞ corresponds to a
radial moment of a specific order, so that the Zernike
moments can be computed as the algebra ic combinations
of the Fourier-Mellin moments.
Bhatia and Wolf derived
[20]
another orthogonal set of
polynomials in x and y, which contains only the powers
of r higher than circular harmonic order n ≥ jmj, but with
the condition for even n − jmj removed
[20]
. This moment
set is now referred to as the pseudo-Zernike moments
[23]
.
When high circular harmonics of the order m are used
to represent the image of the angular variation in the
range ½0; 2π
[15]
, the Zernike and pseudo-Zernike moments
with the radial polynomial degrees n ≥ jmj must suffer
from severe information suppression drawback by the high
radial moment orders.
2. Orthogonal Fourier-Mellin moments
The orthogonal Fourier-Mellin moments
[24]
are design ed to
avoid the information suppression issue in the Zernike
moments. The orthogonal Fourier-Mellin moments are
defined as
Φ
nm
¼
1
2πa
n
Z
2π
0
Z
1
0
Q
n
ðrÞ expð−jmθÞf ðr; θÞrdrdθ;
(11)
COL 14(9), 091001(2016) CHINESE OPTICS LETTERS September 10, 2016
091001-3