diff --git a/skimage/feature/_brief.py b/skimage/feature/_brief.py
index 40ad204b..22f62e71 100644
--- a/skimage/feature/_brief.py
+++ b/skimage/feature/_brief.py
@@ -4,32 +4,63 @@
 import numpy as np
 from skimage.color import rgb2gray
 from scipy.ndimage.filters import gaussian_filter
+from scipy.spatial.distance import hamming
+
 
 def _remove_border_keypoints(image, keypoints, dist):
 
 	width = image.shape[0]
 	height = image.shape[1]
 
-	keypoints_list = keypoints.tolist()
-
-	for i, j in keypoints_list:
-		if i > width - dist[0] or i < dist[0] or j < dist[1] or j > height - dist[0]:
-			keypoints.remove([i, j])
-
-	keypoints = np.asarray(keypoints_list)
+	keypoints = keypoints[(dist < keypoints[:, 0]) & (keypoints[:, 0] < width - dist) &
+				(dist < keypoints[:, 1]) & (keypoints[:, 1] < height - dist)]
 	return keypoints
 
 
 def brief(image, keypoints, descriptor_size=256, mode='normal', patch_size=49, sample_seed=1):
+	"""Extract BRIEF Descriptor about given keypoints for a given image.
 
+
+    Parameters
+    ----------
+    image : ndarray
+        Input image.
+    keypoints : (P, 2) ndarray
+        Array of keypoint locations.
+    descriptor_size : int
+        Size of BRIEF descriptor about each keypoint. Sizes 128, 256 and 512
+        preferred by the authors. Default is 256.
+    mode : string
+        Probability distribution for sampling location of decision pixel-pairs
+        around keypoints. Default is 'normal' otherwise uniform.
+    patch_size : int
+        Length of the two dimensional square patch sampling region around
+        the keypoints. Default is 49.
+    sample_seed : int
+        Seed for sampling the decision pixel-pairs. Default is 1.
+
+    Returns
+    -------
+    descriptor : ndarray with dtype bool
+        2D ndarray of dimensions (no_of_keypoints, descriptor_size) with value
+        at an index (i, j) either being True or False representing the outcome
+        of Intensity comparison about ith keypoint on jth decision pixel-pair.
+
+    References
+    ----------
+    .. [1] Michael Calonder, Vincent Lepetit, Christoph Strecha, and Pascal Fua
+    "BRIEF : Binary robust independent elementary features",
+    http://cvlabwww.epfl.ch/~lepetit/papers/calonder_eccv10.pdf
+
+    """
 	if np.squeeze(image).ndim == 3:
 		image = rgb2gray(image)
 
-	keypoints = np.round(keypoints)
+	# Removing keypoints that are (patch_size / 2) distance from the image border
+	keypoints = np.array(keypoints + 0.5, dtype=np.intp)
+	keypoints = _remove_border_keypoints(image, keypoints, patch_size / 2)
 
-	keypoints = _remove_border_keypoints(image, keypoints, (patch_size / 2, patch_size / 2))
-
-	descriptor = np.zeros((len(keypoints), descriptor_size), dtype=int)
+	descriptor = np.zeros((len(keypoints), descriptor_size), dtype=bool)
 
 	# Gaussian Low pass filtering with variance 2 to alleviate noise sensitivity
 	image = gaussian_filter(image, 2)
@@ -38,8 +69,7 @@ def brief(image, keypoints, descriptor_size=256, mode='normal', patch_size=49, s
 	if mode == 'normal':
 		np.random.seed(sample_seed)
 		samples = np.round((patch_size / 5) * np.random.randn(descriptor_size * 8))
-		samples = samples[samples < (patch_size / 2)]
-		samples = samples[samples > - (patch_size - 1) / 2]
+		samples = samples[(samples < (patch_size / 2)) & (samples > - (patch_size - 1) / 2)]
 		first = (samples[: descriptor_size * 2]).reshape(descriptor_size, 2)
 		second = (samples[descriptor_size * 2: descriptor_size * 4]).reshape(descriptor_size, 2)
 	else:
@@ -47,22 +77,22 @@ def brief(image, keypoints, descriptor_size=256, mode='normal', patch_size=49, s
 		samples = np.random.randint(-patch_size / 2, (patch_size / 2) + 1, (descriptor_size * 2, 2))
 		first, second = np.split(samples, 2)
 
+	# Intensity comparison tests for building the descriptor
 	for i in range(len(keypoints)):
 		set_1 = first + keypoints[i]
 		set_2 = second + keypoints[i]
 
 		for j in range(descriptor_size):
 			if image[set_1[j, 0]][set_1[j, 1]] < image[set_2[j, 0]][set_2[j, 0]]:
-				descriptor[i][j] = 1
-			else:
-				descriptor[i][j] = 0
+				descriptor[i][j] = True
 
 	return descriptor
 
+
 def hamming_distance(descriptor_1, descriptor_2):
 
 	distance = np.zeros((len(descriptor_1), len(descriptor_2)), dtype=int)
 	for i in range(len(descriptor_1)):
 		for j in range(len(descriptor_2)):
-			distance[i, j] = sum(np.bitwise_xor(descriptor_1[i][:], descriptor_2[j][:]))
-	return distance / descriptor_1.shape[1]
+			distance[i, j] = hamming(descriptor_1[i][:], descriptor_2[j][:])
+	return distance