Image Processing: Algorithm Improvement for 'Coca-Cola Can' Recognition

Question

One of the most interesting projects I\'ve worked on in the past couple of years was a project about image processing. The goal was to develop a system to be able to recogni

Answer 1

Looking at shape

Take a gander at the shape of the red portion of the can/bottle. Notice how the can tapers off slightly at the very top whereas the bottle label is straight. You can distinguish between these two by comparing the width of the red portion across the length of it.

Looking at highlights

One way to distinguish between bottles and cans is the material. A bottle is made of plastic whereas a can is made of aluminum metal. In sufficiently well-lit situations, looking at the specularity would be one way of telling a bottle label from a can label.

As far as I can tell, that is how a human would tell the difference between the two types of labels. If the lighting conditions are poor, there is bound to be some uncertainty in distinguishing the two anyways. In that case, you would have to be able to detect the presence of the transparent/translucent bottle itself.