Assume you have two images. In one you have a small icon (like less than 300X300 pixels). The second is a very large one, and in within you have one (or multiple) smaller instances of the icon (of course at different scale, rotation).
The task at hand is to find the instances of the icon in the big image. How would you guys approach this?
I've tried to use a feature based object detection, by using the OpenCV library, however for crowded big images (containing many feature points), the matching is inconclusive. I've tried the SURF/OBJ feature extractors with the BRUTE/FLAN matching algorithms.
From my experience it seems like the matching takes no note of the geometrical relations between the feature points on the two images. As a visualization help I've attached an instance of the feature points of two example images. 
And here's a harder instance of the task. I've highlighted the icon in the big image. 