android - How to save OpenCV Keypoint features to database?

Question

My project is recognition the leaf on Android using OpenCV library. I am using ORB detection to get the keypoint of image and use ORB descriptor to get the feature of the keypoint. This is the code that i use:

bmp=BitmapFactory.decodeResource(getResources(),R.drawable.t1);
Utils.bitmapToMat(bmp, mat);
FeatureDetector detector = FeatureDetector.create(FeatureDetector.ORB);
detector.detect(mat, keypoints);
DescriptorExtractor extractor = DescriptorExtractor.create(DescriptorExtractor.ORB);
extractor.compute(mat, keypoints, features);

Source : http://answers.opencv.org/question/6260/orb-features/

But every i input the same image, the keypoint of that image always different. Can i save the feature of keypoint to database if that always different? Or should i save the image to save the feature data? If that can save to database, how can i do that??

Answer 1

In my opinion the most universal way to store the keypoints is to first convert them to a data-interchange format like JSON.

After you are able to do that conversion you have a lot of flexibility to store it. JSON is easily converted to a String and/or sent through a network connection.

With OpenCV C++ you are able to store data as YAML, but that is not available for Android yet.

To parse JSON in Java you can use this easy to use library Google GSON.

And here is my first attempt to do exactly that:

 public static String keypointsToJson(MatOfKeyPoint mat){
    if(mat!=null && !mat.empty()){          
        Gson gson = new Gson();

        JsonArray jsonArr = new JsonArray();            

        KeyPoint[] array = mat.toArray();
        for(int i=0; i<array.length; i++){
            KeyPoint kp = array[i];

            JsonObject obj = new JsonObject();

            obj.addProperty("class_id", kp.class_id); 
            obj.addProperty("x",        kp.pt.x);
            obj.addProperty("y",        kp.pt.y);
            obj.addProperty("size",     kp.size);
            obj.addProperty("angle",    kp.angle);                          
            obj.addProperty("octave",   kp.octave);
            obj.addProperty("response", kp.response);

            jsonArr.add(obj);               
        }

        String json = gson.toJson(jsonArr);         

        return json;
    }
    return "{}";
}

public static MatOfKeyPoint keypointsFromJson(String json){
    MatOfKeyPoint result = new MatOfKeyPoint();

    JsonParser parser = new JsonParser();
    JsonArray jsonArr = parser.parse(json).getAsJsonArray();        

    int size = jsonArr.size();

    KeyPoint[] kpArray = new KeyPoint[size];

    for(int i=0; i<size; i++){
        KeyPoint kp = new KeyPoint(); 

        JsonObject obj = (JsonObject) jsonArr.get(i);

        Point point = new Point( 
                obj.get("x").getAsDouble(), 
                obj.get("y").getAsDouble() 
        );          

        kp.pt       = point;
        kp.class_id = obj.get("class_id").getAsInt();
        kp.size     =     obj.get("size").getAsFloat();
        kp.angle    =    obj.get("angle").getAsFloat();
        kp.octave   =   obj.get("octave").getAsInt();
        kp.response = obj.get("response").getAsFloat();

        kpArray[i] = kp;
    }

    result.fromArray(kpArray);

    return result;
}