Awesome Image Matching

🏠 Introduction

A curated list of papers on imag matching.

If you find some overlooked papers, please open issues or pull requests (recommended).

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Table of contents

• Survey
• Benchmark
• Detector Learning
• Descriptor Learning
• Detector & Descriptor Learning
• Feature Matching
• Others

Survey

Year	Pub	Paper	Repo
2021	IJCV	Image Matching from Handcrafted to Deep Features: A Survey	Blog
2024	Information Fusion	Local Feature Matching Using Deep Learning: A Survey	Paper List
2025	arXiv	Deep Learning Reforms Image Matching: A Survey and Outlook

Benchmark

Year	Pub	Paper	Repo
2005	TPAMI	A Performance Evaluation of Local Descriptors
2007	IJCV	Automatic Panoramic Image Stitching using Invariant Features
2008	CVPR	On Benchmarking Camera Calibration and Multi-View Stereo for High Resolution Imagery
2011	ICCV	Edge Foci Interest Points
2011	IJCV	Interesting Interest Points
2017	CVPR	Comparative Evaluation of Hand-Crafted and Learned Local Features	Code
2017	CVPR	HPatches: A benchmark and evaluation of handcrafted and learned local descriptors	Code & Project Page
2018	BMVC	Large scale evaluation of local image feature detectors on homography datasets	Code
2018	CVPR	MegaDepth: Learning Single-View Depth Prediction from Internet Photos	Project Page
2019	BMVC	An Evaluation of Feature Matchers for Fundamental Matrix Estimation	Code
2021	IJCV	Image Matching across Wide Baselines: From Paper to Practice	Code
2023	CVPR	A Large Scale Homography Benchmark	Code
2024	IROS	GV-Bench: Benchmarking Local Feature Matching for Geometric Verification of Long-term Loop Closure Detection	Code
2024	ECCVW	Mismatched: Evaluating the Limits of Image Matching Approaches and Benchmarks	Code
2024	ECCVW	Deep Learning Meets Satellite Images – An Evaluation on Handcrafted and Learning-based Features for Multi-date Satellite Stereo Images
2025	CVPR	RUBIK: A Structured Benchmark for Image Matching across Geometric Challenges
2025	NeurIPS	C3Po: Cross-View Cross-Modality Correspondence by Pointmap Prediction	Project Page
2026	CVPRW	Are Pretrained Image Matchers Good Enough for SAR-Optical Satellite Registration?	Project Page
2026	arXiv	CM-Bench: A Comprehensive Cross-Modal Feature Matching Benchmark Bridging Visible and Infrared Images	Code
2026	arXiv	LoRetta: A Foundation Model and Extensive Dataset for Global-Scale Remote Sensing Dense Image Matching
2026	arXiv	Cross-View Feature Matching: Survey, Benchmarking, and Foundation-Model Perspectives

Detector Learning

Year	Pub	Paper	Repo
2015	CVPR	TILDE: A Temporally Invariant Learned DEtector	Code
2016	ECCVW	Learning Covariant Feature Detectors	Code
2017	CVPR	Quad-networks: unsupervised learning to rank for interest point detection
2017	CVPR	Learning Discriminative and Transformation Covariant Local Feature Detectors	Code
2018	CVPR	Learning to Detect Features in Texture Images	Code
2019	ICCV	Key.Net: Keypoint Detection by Handcrafted and Learned CNN Filters	Code
2019	ICCV	ELF: Embedded Localisation of Features in Pre-Trained CNN	Code
2020	ACCV	D2D: Keypoint Extraction with Describe to Detect Approach
2021	WACV	Learning of low-level feature keypoints for accurate and robust detection
2022	CVPR	Self-Supervised Equivariant Learning for Oriented Keypoint Detection	Project Page
2023	ICCV	NeSS-ST: Detecting Good and Stable Keypoints with a Neural Stability Score and the Shi-Tomasi detector	Code
2023	PRL	Improving the matching of deformable objects by learning to detect keypoints	Code
2024	WACV	BALF: Simple and Efficient Blur Aware Local Feature Detector	Project Page
2024	ICML	Scale-Free Image Keypoints Using Differentiable Persistent Homology	Code
2024	ECCV	Learning to Make Keypoints Sub-Pixel Accurate	Code
2024	ECCV	GMM-IKRS: Gaussian Mixture Models for Interpretable Keypoint Refinement and Scoring
2025	arXiv	Good Keypoints for the Two-View Geometry Estimation Problem	Code
2025	arXiv	DaD: Distilled Reinforcement Learning for Diverse Keypoint Detection	Code
2026	CVPR	From Pairs to Sequences: Track-Aware Policy Gradients for Keypoint Detection
2026	NeurIPS	Towards Complementary Keypoint Detection via Mixture of Detectors
2026	3DV	RaCo: Ranking and Covariance for Practical Learned Keypoints	Code
2026	3DV	XRefine: Attention-Guided Keypoint Match Refinement	Code
2026	arXiv	Misanthrope: A Privacy-Preserving Keypoint Detector	Code
2026	arXiv	SSMB: Self-Supervised Local Feature Detection under Motion Blur

Descriptor Learning

Year	Pub	Paper	Repo
2012	ECCV	Descriptor Learning Using Convex Optimisation	Code
2012	NeurIPS	Learning Image Descriptors with the Boosting-Trick
2014	TPAMI	Learning Local Feature Descriptors Using Convex Optimisation
2014	arXiv	Descriptor Matching with Convolutional Neural Networks: a Comparison to SIFT
2015	CVPR	Learning to Compare Image Patches via Convolutional Neural Networks	Blog
2015	CVPR	MatchNet: Unifying Feature and Metric Learning for Patch-Based Matching	Blog
2015	ICCV	Discriminative Learning of Deep Convolutional Feature Point Descriptors	Code
2016	BMVC	Learning local feature descriptors with triplets and shallow convolutional neural networks	Code
2016	CoRR	PN-Net: Conjoined Triple Deep Networks for Learning Local Image Descriptors	Code, Blog
2016	CVPR	Learning Local Image Descriptors with Deep Siamese and Triplet Convolutional Networks by Minimizing Global Loss Functions
2016	CVPRW	Euclidean and Hamming Embedding for Image Patch Description with Convolutional Networks
2016	RAL	Self-Supervised Visual Descriptor Learning for Dense Correspondence
2017	CVPR	L2-Net: Deep Learning of Discriminative Patch Descriptor in Euclidean Space	Code
2017	NeurIPS	Working hard to know your neighbor's margins: Local descriptor learning loss	Code
2017	TIP	Learning Rotation-Invariant Local Binary Descriptor
2018	CVPR	Learning Deep Descriptors with Scale-Aware Triplet Networks	Code
2018	CVPR	Local Descriptors Optimized for Average Precision
2018	ECCV	GeoDesc: Learning Local Descriptors by Integrating Geometry Constraints	Code
2019	CVPR	ContextDesc: Local Descriptor Augmentation with Cross-Modality Context	Code
2019	CVPR	SOSNet: Second Order Similarity Regularization for Local Descriptor Learning	Code
2019	CVWW	Leveraging Outdoor Webcams for Local Descriptor Learning	Data
2019	ICCV	Beyond Cartesian Representations for Local Descriptors	Code
2019	NeurIPS	GIFT: Learning Transformation-Invariant Dense Visual Descriptors via Group CNNs	Project Page
2020	ECCV	Learning Feature Descriptors using Camera Pose Supervision	Project Page
2020	ECCV	Online Invariance Selection for Local Feature Descriptors	Code
2021	IROS	RoRD: Rotation-Robust Descriptors and Orthographic Views for Local Feature Matching	Project Page
2022	AAAI	MTLDesc: Looking Wider to Describe Better	Code
2023	CVPR	FeatureBooster: Boosting Feature Descriptors with a Lightweight Neural Network	Code
2023	CVPR	Learning Rotation-Equivariant Features for Visual Correspondence	Project Page
2023	ICRA	Descriptor Distillation for Efficient Multi-Robot SLAM
2023	IROS	DRKF: Distilled Rotated Kernel Fusion for Efficient Rotation Invariant Descriptors in Local Feature Matching
2023	TIM	Illumination-insensitive Binary Descriptor for Visual Measurement Based on Local Inter-patch Invariance
2023	arXiv	Residual Learning for Image Point Descriptors
2024	CVPR	Steerers: A framework for rotation equivariant keypoint descriptors	Code
2024	ECCV	Affine steerers for structured keypoint description	Code
2024	AAAI	SDGMNet: Statistic-Based Dynamic Gradient Modulation for Local Descriptor Learning	Code
2025	ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing	PromptMID: Modal Invariant Descriptors Based on Diffusion and Vision Foundation Models for Optical-SAR Image Matching	Code
2026	ECCV	CrossFeat: Bridging Imaging Modalities in Feature Descriptor Space	Code
2026	3DV	A Streamlined Attention-Based Network for Descriptor Extraction
2026	RAL	Learning Rotation-Aware Binary Descriptors for Visual Localization
2026	arXiv	CLIDD: Cross-Layer Independent Deformable Description for Efficient and Discriminative Local Feature Representation	Code
2026	arXiv	Desc++: Efficient Descriptor Enhancement for Data Association in Existing Visual SLAM Systems	Code
2026	arXiv	Radiation, Rotation and Scale Invariant Feature Descriptor for Multimodal Image Matching	Code

Detector & Descriptor Learning

Year	Pub	Paper	Repo
2016	ECCV	LIFT: Learned Invariant Feature Points	Code
2018	CVPRW	SuperPoint: Self-Supervised Interest Point Detection and Description	Code
2018	NeurIPS	LF-Net: Learning Local Features from Images	Code
2019	CVPR	RF-Net: An End-to-End Image Matching Network based on Receptive Field	Code
2019	CVPR	D2-Net: A Trainable CNN for Joint Detection and Description of Local Features	Project Page
2019	NeurIPS	R2D2: Repeatable and Reliable Detector and Descriptor	Code
2019	arXiv	UnsuperPoint: End-to-end Unsupervised Interest Point Detector and Descriptor
2020	CVPR	ASLFeat: Learning Local Features of Accurate Shape and Localization	Code
2020	CVPR	Reinforced Feature Points: Optimizing Feature Detection and Description for a High-Level Task	Code
2020	ICLR	Neural Outlier Rejection for Self-Supervised Keypoint Learning	Code
2020	NeurIPS	DISK: Learning local features with policy gradient	Code
2020	arXiv	SEKD: Self-Evolving Keypoint Detection and Description	Code
2021	IROS	RaP-Net: A Region-wise and Point-wise Weighting Network to Extract Robust Features for Indoor Localization	Code
2022	ACCV	Rethinking Low-level Features for Interest Point Detection and Description	Code
2022	BMVC	Local Feature Extraction from Salient Regions by Feature Map Transformation	Project Page
2022	CVPR	Decoupling Makes Weakly Supervised Local Feature Better	Code
2022	ECCV	Semi-Supervised Keypoint Detector and Descriptor for Retinal Image Matching	Code
2022	TMM	ALIKE: Accurate and Lightweight Keypoint Detection and Descriptor Extraction	Code
2022	TIP	ReDFeat: Recoupling Detection and Description for Multimodal Feature Learning	Code
2023	AAAI	DarkFeat: Noise-Robust Feature Detector and Descriptor for Extremely Low-Light RAW Images	Code
2023	CVPR	Enhancing Deformable Local Features by Jointly Learning to Detect and Describe Keypoints	Project Page
2023	CVPR	SFD2: Semantic-Guided Feature Detection and Description	Code
2023	CVPR	Learning Transformation-Predictive Representations for Detection and Description of Local Features
2023	CVPR	D2Former: Jointly Learning Hierarchical Detectors and Contextual Descriptors via Agent-Based Transformers
2023	CVPRW	ZippyPoint: Fast Interest Point Detection, Description, and Matching through Mixed Precision Discretization	Code
2023	RAL	Learning Task-Aligned Local Features for Visual Localization
2023	TIM	ALIKED: A Lighter Keypoint and Descriptor Extraction Network via Deformable Transformation	Code
2023	TMM	Shared Coupling-Bridge Scheme for Weakly Supervised Local Feature Learning	Code
2023	TPAMI	Attention Weighted Local Descriptors	Code
2023	ICCV	SiLK: Simple Learned Keypoints	Code
2023	ICCV	S-TREK: Sequential Translation and Rotation Equivariant Keypoints for local feature extraction
2023	ICRA	Knowledge Distillation for Feature Extraction in Underwater VSLAM	Dataset
2024	3DV	DeDoDe: Detect, Don't Describe -- Describe, Don't Detect for Local Feature Matching	Code
2024	CVPR	XFeat: Accelerated Features for Lightweight Image Matching	Project Page
2024	CVPRW	DeDoDe v2: Analyzing and Improving the DeDoDe Keypoint Detector	Code
2025	IJCNN	LBurst: Learning-Based Robotic Burst Feature Extraction for 3D Reconstruction in Low Light	Project Page
2025	WACV	EI-Nexus: Towards Unmediated and Flexible Inter-Modality Local Feature Extraction and Matching for Event-Image Data	Code
2025	ICRA	LiftFeat: 3D Geometry-Aware Local Feature Matching	Code
2025	ICRA	Keypoint Detection and Description for Raw Bayer Images
2025	CVPR	RDD: Robust Feature Detector and Descriptor using Deformable Transformer	Project Page
2025	ICCV	RIPE: Reinforcement Learning on Unlabeled Image Pairs for Robust Keypoint Extraction	Project Page
2025	ICCV	SuperEvent: Cross-Modal Learning of Event-based Keypoint Detection for SLAM	Project Page
2025	RAL	Knowledge Distillation for Underwater Feature Extraction and Matching via GAN-synthesized Images
2026	ECCV	Unified and Efficient Point-Line Local Features	Code
2026	ECCVW	RIPE++: Reinforced Keypoint Learning from Positive Pairs Only	Project Page
2025	arXiv	EdgePoint2: Compact Descriptors for Superior Efficiency and Accuracy	Code
2026	arXiv	GESS: Multi-cue Guided Local Feature Learning via Geometric and Semantic Synergy	Code
2026	arXiv	AsymLoc: Towards Asymmetric Feature Matching for Efficient Visual Localization
2026	arXiv	XFeat Revisited: Reproducibility and Evaluation of a Lightweight Image Matcher	Code
2026	arXiv	E-S2Feat:Semantic-Guided Spiking Local Feature Detection and Description for Event Cameras

Feature Matching

Year	Pub	Paper	Repo
2020	CVPR	SuperGlue: Learning Feature Matching with Graph Neural Networks	Code
2021	CVPR	LoFTR: Detector-Free Local Feature Matching with Transformers	Project Page
2021	ICCV	COTR: Correspondence Transformer for Matching Across Images	Code
2022	ICLR	QuadTree Attention for Vision Transformers	Code
2022	ECCV	ASpanFormer: Detector-Free Image Matching with Adaptive Span Transformer	Code
2022	ACCV	MatchFormer: Interleaving Attention in Transformers for Feature Matching	Code
2023	CVPR	DKM: Dense Kernelized Feature Matching for Geometry Estimation	Project Page
2023	CVPR	IMP: Iterative Matching and Pose Estimation with Adaptive Pooling	Code
2023	ICCV	LightGlue: Local Feature Matching at Light Speed	Code
2023	ICCV	End2End Multi-View Feature Matching with Differentiable Pose Optimization	Project Page
2023	arXiv	AffineGlue: Joint Matching and Robust Estimation
2023	arXiv	Searching from Area to Point: A Hierarchical Framework for Semantic-Geometric Combined Feature Matching	Code
2024	ICLR	Diffusion Model for Dense Matching	Project Page
2024	CVPR	RoMa: Robust Dense Feature Matching	Project Page
2024	CVPR	OmniGlue: Generalizable Feature Matching with Foundation Model Guidance	Project Page
2024	CVPR	Efficient LoFTR: Semi-Dense Local Feature Matching with Sparse-Like Speed	Project Page
2024	CVPR	MESA: Matching Everything by Segmenting Anything	Project Page
2024	CVPRW	XoFTR: Cross-modal Feature Matching Transformer	Code
2024	ECCV	Raising the Ceiling: Conflict-Free Local Feature Matching with Dynamic View Switching
2024	ECCV	StereoGlue: Robust Estimation with Single-Point Solvers	Code
2024	ECCV	iMatching: Imperative Correspondence Learning	Code
2024	MM	PRISM: PRogressive dependency maxImization for Scale-invariant image Matching	Code
2024	MM	DiffGlue: Diffusion-Aided Image Feature Matching	Code
2024	AAAI	ResMatch: Residual Attention Learning for Feature Matching	Code
2024	ACCV	Leveraging Semantic Cues from Foundation Vision Models for Enhanced Local Feature Correspondence	Project Page
2024	NeurIPS	ETO: Efficient Transformer-based Local Feature Matching by Organizing Multiple Homography Hypotheses
2024	IJCV	Feature Matching via Graph Clustering with Local Affine Consensus
2024	arXiv	Grounding Image Matching in 3D with MASt3R	Code
2024	arXiv	ConDL: Detector-Free Dense Image Matching
2024	arXiv	XPoint: A Self-Supervised Visual-State-Space based Architecture for Multispectral Image Registration	Code
2025	COINS	Speedy MASt3R	Code
2025	ICRA	MambaGlue: Fast and Robust Local Feature Matching With Mamba	Code
2025	3DV	Geometry-aware Feature Matching for Large-Scale Structure from Motion
2025	CVPR	EDM: Equirectangular Projection-Oriented Dense Kernelized Feature Matching	Project Page
2025	CVPR	JamMa: Ultra-lightweight Local Feature Matching with Joint Mamba	Project Page
2025	CVPR	CoMatcher: Multi-View Collaborative Feature Matching
2025	CVPR	Learning Affine Correspondences by Integrating Geometric Constraints	Code
2025	CVPR	MINIMA: Modality Invariant Image Matching	Code
2025	CVPR	MATCHA:Towards Matching Anything	Project Page
2025	AAAI	HomoMatcher: Achieving Dense Feature Matching with Semi-Dense Efficiency by Homography Estimation
2025	ICCV	Learning Dense Feature Matching via Lifting Single 2D Image to 3D Space	Code
2025	ICCV	Mind the Gap: Aligning Vision Foundation Models to Image Feature Matching
2025	ICCV	CasP: Improving Semi-Dense Feature Matching Pipeline Leveraging Cascaded Correspondence Priors for Guidance	Code
2025	ICCV	EDM: Efficient Deep Feature Matching	Code
2025	ICCV	CoMatch: Dynamic Covisibility-Aware Transformer for Bilateral Subpixel-Level Semi-Dense Image Matching	Code
2025	ICCV	SGAD: Semantic and Geometric-aware Descriptor for Local Feature Matching	Project Page
2025	ICCV	ArgMatch: Adaptive Refinement Gathering for Efficient Dense Matching	Code
2025	IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing	SatDepth: A Novel Dataset for Satellite Image Matching	Code
2025	Neural Networks	GIMS: Image Matching System Based on Adaptive Graph Construction and Graph Neural Network	Code
2025	TIP	MIFNet: Learning Modality-Invariant Features for Generalizable Multimodal Image Matching	Code
2025	TPAMI	MESA: Effective Matching Redundancy Reduction by Semantic Area Segmentation	Project Page
2025	arXiv	MatchAnything: Universal Cross-Modality Image Matching with Large-Scale Pre-Training	Project Page
2025	arXiv	Diff-Reg v2: Diffusion-Based Matching Matrix Estimation for Image Matching and 3D Registration
2025	arXiv	MapGlue: Multimodal Remote Sensing Image Matching	Code
2025	arXiv	Flow Intelligence: Robust Feature Matching via Temporal Signature Correlation
2025	arXiv	Not All Pixels Are Equal: Confidence-Guided Attention for Feature Matching
2025	arXiv	MatChA: Cross-Algorithm Matching with Feature Augmentation
2025	arXiv	VMatcher: State-Space Semi-Dense Local Feature Matching	Code
2025	arXiv	SPIDER: Spatial Image CorresponDence Estimator for Robust Calibration
2026	CVPR	MV-RoMa: From Pairwise Matching into Multi-View Track Reconstruction	Project Page
2026	CVPR	UniCorrn: Unified Correspondence Transformer Across 2D and 3D	Project Page
2026	ICRA	SURE: Semi-dense Uncertainty-REfined Feature Matching	Code
2026	3DV	Pixel-Accurate Epipolar Guided Matching	Project Page
2026	CVPRW	Who Handles Orientation? Investigating Invariance in Feature Matching	Code
2026	ECCV	RoMa v2: Harder Better Faster Denser Feature Matching	Code
2026	ECCV	LoMa: Local Feature Matching Revisited	Project Page
2026	ECCVW	RoMa-Ω: What Feed-Forward 3D Models Know About Image Matching	Code
2026	arXiv	Understanding and Optimizing Attention-Based Sparse Matching for Diverse Local Features
2026	arXiv	EpiMask: Leveraging Epipolar Distance Based Masks in Cross-Attention for Satellite Image Matching	Code
2026	arXiv	Improving Local Feature Matching by Entropy-inspired Scale Adaptability and Flow-endowed Local Consistency
2026	arXiv	SceneGlue: Scene-Aware Transformer for Feature Matching without Scene-Level Annotation	Code
2026	arXiv	Match-Any-Events: Zero-Shot Motion-Robust Feature Matching Across Wide Baselines for Event Cameras	Code
2026	arXiv	SAMatcher: Co-Visibility Modeling with Segment Anything for Robust Feature Matching	Project Page
2026	arXiv	REDI-Match: Rotation-Equivariant Distillation for Efficient and Robust Dense Matching	Code
2026	arXiv	AnyMatch: Supercharging Universal Multi-Modal Image Matching with Large-Scale Single-View Images
2026	arXiv	Label-Free Target-Domain Adaptation for Unconstrained Event-Image Feature Matching via Dual-Stage Distillation	Code
2026	arXiv	SGFormer: Structure-Guided Transformer for Robust Local Feature Matching
2026	arXiv	Semi-Dense Matching Uncertainty Is Not Just Local Confidence	Code
2026	arXiv	TartanMatch: Towards Universal Dense Correspondence Across Modalities	Project Page
2026	arXiv	MVLoMa: Multi-View Local Feature Matching with Any Geometry Foundation Model	Project Page
2026	arXiv	WovenAnchor Matcher: Specialized Intra- and Inter-Image Context Modeling for Feature Matching	Code
2026	arXiv	FlexGlue: Sparse-to-Dense Feature Matching and Visual Disambiguation	Code

Others

Year	Pub	Paper	Repo
2016	CVPR	Learning to Assign Orientations to Feature Points	Code
2020	CVPR	On Translation Invariance in CNNs: Convolutional Layers can Exploit Absolute Spatial Location	Code
2022	AAAI	Guide Local Feature Matching by Overlap Estimation	Code
2024	ICLR	GIM: Learning Generalizable Image Matcher From Internet Videos	Project Page