SIFT_loader.hpp

/*===========================================================================*\
 *                                                                           *
 *                            ACG Localizer                                  *
 *      Copyright (C) 2011 by Computer Graphics Group, RWTH Aachen           *
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 *  ACG Localizer is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify    *
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#ifndef SIFT_LOADER_HH
#define SIFT_LOADER_HH

/**
 *    Class to read SIFT features from the text files generated by
 *    David Lowe's binary ( available at http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~lowe/keypoints/).
 *
 *    IMPORTANT NOTE: The SIFT loader keeps the coordinate systems of the binaries. For example,
 *    the origin of the coordinate system used by David Lowe is in the upper left of the image.
 *  
 *  author : Torsten Sattler (tsattler@cs.rwth-aachen.de)
 *  date : 09-26-2011
 **/

#include <vector>
#include <stdint.h>

#include "SIFT_keypoint.hpp"

class SIFT_loader {
public:
	//! constructor
	SIFT_loader();

	//! destructor
	~SIFT_loader();

	//! load features from a file with a given format
	void load_features(const char *filename, SIFT_FORMAT format);

	//! save the features loaded to a file in David Lowes Format
	bool save_features_lowe(const char *filename);

	//! clears all data loaded so far
	void clear_data();

	//! returns the number of features loaded
	uint32_t get_nb_features();

	//! get access to a vector containg the descriptors (stored as chars)
	std::vector<unsigned char*>& get_descriptors();

	//! get the keypoints
	std::vector<SIFT_keypoint>& get_keypoints();

private:

	std::vector<SIFT_keypoint> mKeypoints;
	std::vector<unsigned char*> mDescriptors;
	uint32_t mNbFeatures;

	bool load_Lowe_features(const char *filename);

};

#endif