Histogram of template for pedestrian detection

In this paper, we propose a novel feature named histogram of template (HOT) for human detection in still images. For every pixel of an image, various templates are defined, each of which contains the pixel itself and two of its neighboring pixels. If the texture and gradient values of the three pixels satisfy a pre-defined formula, the central pixel is regarded to meet the corresponding template for this formula. Histograms of pixels meeting various templates are calculated for a set of formulas, and combined to be the feature for detection. Compared to the other features, the proposed feature takes texture as well as the gradient information into consideration. Besides, it reflects the relationship between 3 pixels, instead of focusing on only one. Experiments for human detection are performed on INRIA dataset, which shows the proposed HOT feature is more discriminative than histogram of orientated gradient (HOG) feature, under the same training method.