https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/1674847 G. J. Vanderbrug and A. Rosenfeld, “Two-Stage Template Matching,” IEEE Transactions on Computers, Vol. C-26, No. 4, pp. 384–393, April 1977. DOI: 10.1109/TC.1977.1674847
Another application where template matching would work brilliantly? Car counting in parking lots using satellite imagery.
Source: I did this [1] using OpenCV and template matching. Outperformed "Cars Overhead with Context" models.
https://abcnews.com/International/satellite-data-suggests-co...
That is certainly pretty far from what was possible 25 years ago.