Orthogonal moments based on exponent functions: Exponent-Fourier moments

•Exponent-Fourier moments are proposed.•A new method for extracting the features of an image is presented.•Experiments and theoretical analysis on Exponent-Fourier moments.

In this paper, we propose a new set of orthogonal moments based on Exponent functions, named Exponent-Fourier moments (EFMs), which are suitable for image analysis and rotation invariant pattern recognition. Compared with Zernike polynomials of the same degree, the new radial functions have more zeros, and these zeros are evenly distributed, this property make EFMs have strong ability in describing image. Unlike Zernike moments, the kernel of computation of EFMs is extremely simple. Theoretical and experimental results show that Exponent-Fourier moments perform very well in terms of image reconstruction capability and invariant recognition accuracy in noise-free, noisy and smooth distortion conditions. The Exponent-Fourier moments can be thought of as generalized orthogonal complex moments.