Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
I. I NTRODUCTION
Edge detection is a low-level image processing operation adopted for object recognition. Edges are regions of
pixels where the gradient of the image is discontinuous.
In the absence of depth and illumination discontinuities,
edges evidence the boundaries between different objects.
Thus edges are one of the most important sources of
information in an image [1]. Furthermore, the prior knowledge derived from the edge map is adopted to drive
the convergence of segmentation algorithms applied to
complex images [2].
An edge detection procedure involves three steps: image
smoothing, edge detection and edge localization. Image
smoothing is adopted to regularize the image with respect
to the noise [1]. Edge detection is achieved by evaluating
the magnitude and direction of the image gradient, which
define the edge strength and orientation respectively. The
approximation chosen to evaluate the gradient of the image
defines the accuracy of the detector operator [13]. The
most commonly adopted edge detector relies on the discrete convolution of the image with filter masks obtained
from second order accurate FD approximations of the
exact differential operators [12].
The Prewitt and Sobel edge detectors are both based on
a second order FD discretization of the image gradient
To improve the spectral resolution of the discrete derivative operator, a high order FD formula can be adopted. In
fact, fourth order FD has an improved spectral resolution
compared to second order FD and increases the frequency
resolution of the discrete edge detector [14].
In this work we propose an improvement of the Canny
edge detector based on a fourth order FD approximation
for the derivative of the Gaussian filtered image. The proposed procedure is validated with respect to a benchmark
database where ground truth segmentation is available.
Comparisons between the Canny algorithm obtained with
a second order FD discretization of the DoG and with a
fourth order discretization are performed. The improvement in edge detection accuracy is quantitatively assessed
through the introduction of a similarity index. The tests
relative to junction detection evidence the recovery of the
broken junctions detected by the second order FD discretization of the DoG. Furthermore, the tests performed
on real benchmark images show an improvement in thin
edge localization.
II. R ELATED W ORK
Modifications of the Canny algorithm documented in
literature are mainly focused on improving the edge detector accuracy and on reducing the uncertainty deriving
from manual thresholding. A scale multiplication-based
scheme was developed in [15] to enhance the performance
of the Canny edge detector incorporating the property of
different edge scales. The similarity between the filtered
images at two contiguous edge scales was exploited to
define a multiplication function given by the multiplication
of filtered images at two contiguous scales. The edges
of the image were located by applying the detection
and localization criteria of such a multiplication function.
Implicit finite differencing schemes were adopted in [8] to
replace the DoG and to perform the computation of the image gradient. The implicit FD scheme was integrated into
the Canny algorithm and the results were compared with
a second order FD difference, Sobel and Sharr operators
being used to compute the gradient. Tests performed on
benchmark images showed that an implicit finite difference
reduced the excessive blurring obtained with Sobel and
the second order finite difference computation due to the
improvement in the spectral resolution.
An improved Canny algorithm was proposed in [18]
for images affected by illumination problems. To account
for the uncertainty in the gradient calculation, an algorithm was adopted an algorithm based on the concept
of type-2 fuzzy sets. The algorithm automatically selects
the threshold values needed to provide the thresholded
gradient images. The results showed a good performance
on benchmark images and medical images.
Other proposed improvements of the Canny algorithm
were focused on the thresholding step. The limitations
imposed from the manual threshold step were overcome by
Otsu in [17] by adopting the adaptive thresholding method.
The low threshold value was computed adaptively through
a probability distribution model. A Gaussian probability
GrayScale Image I
DoG Derivatives
G (x, y)
I
x
G (x, y)
I
y
Iy
Ix
Gradient Magnitude
Ix + I y
Iy
Ix
Hysteresis Thresholding
Edge Map
Figure 1. Workflow of the Canny algorithm with the DoG edge detector
(Canny DOG )
(1)
G
Iy =
I,
y
(2)
and
= 0 , (i + 1, j) , (i 1, j)
= 90 (i, j + 1) , (i, j 1)
= 45 (i + 1, j + 1) , (i 1, j 1)
= 135 (i + 1, j 1) , (i 1, j + 1).
G
I =
(G I)
x
x
G
I =
(G I).
y
y
(3)
(4)
HxII
0
= 0.5
0
0 0
0
0 0.5 , HyII = 0
0 0
0
0.5
0
0.5
0
0
0
(5)
being HxII and HyII the horizontal and vertical edge detector of the second order FD filter. Thus, by partitioning the
image domain by means of a uniform grid spacing along
the image coordinate directions we obtain the following
second order approximation for (3) and (4):
(G I) HxII (G I) =
x
1
= (Ii+1,j Ii1,j )
2
(6)
(G I) HyII (G I) =
y
1
= (Ii,j+1 Ii,j1 )
2
(7)
GrayScale Image I
Gaussian Filtering
(G (x, y) I )
x
H xIV I
(G (x, y) I )
y
H IV I
y
HxIV
0
0
=
1
0
0
0
0
8
0
0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 8 1
0 0 0
0 0 0
(8)
Gradient Magnitude
Ix + Iy
Iy
Hysteresis Thresholding
and
HyIV
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
8
0
8
1
0 0
0 0
0 0
,
0 0
0 0
Edge Map
(9)
IV. R ESULTS
A. Validation of the procedure
i,j =
(G I) (HxIV I)
x
Ii2,j 8Ii1,j + 8Ii+1,j Ii+2,j
=
12
(10)
(G I) (HyIV I)i,j =
y
Ii,j2 8Ii,j1 + 8Ii,j+1 Ii,j+2
=
12
(11)
and
J(I gt , I edge ) =
|I gt I edge |
,
|I gt I edge |
(12)
Figure 5.
Edge detection obtained with Canny DoG (a,c,d) and
Canny F DIV (b,e,f )
Figure 4.
Figure 6.
Comparisons between the edge detection obtained with
Canny DoG (g,i) and Canny F DIV (h,l)
J(I gt , I Canny )
0.2
0.2
J(I gt , I F DIV )
0.3
0.3
Figure 7.
Edge detection comparisons: n ground truth image, o
Canny DoG , p Canny F DIV
t
Figure 9.
Edge detection comparisons: x ground truth image, y
Canny DoG , j Canny F DIV
R EFERENCES
[1] F. A. Pellegrino, W. Vanzella, and V. Torre Edge Detection
Revisited, IEEE Transactions on systems, Man And Cybernetics - Part B: Cybernetics. 2004,34(3):1500-1518.
[2] H. Tang. E. X. Wu, Q. Y. Ma, D. Gallagher, G. M. Perera,
T. Zhuang MRI brain image segmentation by multi-resolution
edge detection and region sellction, Computerized Medical
Imaging and Graphics. 2000,24:349-357.
Figure 8.
Edge detection comparisons: r ground truth image, s
Canny DoG , t Canny F DIV
2005,