Abstract: The invention discloses a method for detecting points of interest in image samples that have a high probability of being present with a consistent spatial relationship to one another, and with high visual similarity, in different images. Some embodiments of the invention exhaustively sample the images, and generate a set of basis functions to capture image components. Each sample is encoded through a set of coefficients produced using the basis functions. Encoding coefficients are then used in a numerical analysis to determine their relative likelihood of representing image locations similar to image locations in other images that containing a common object, symbol or character with a similar viewpoint and scale. The invention proposes a method for identifying identical objects, such as image objects, symbols and characters with differences of object rotation and scaling, differences in lighting and possible foreground occlusion.