General

Under rather general assumptions about the image formation

DD2422 Image Processing and Computer Vision
EDGE DETECTION
Danica Kragic
Computational Vision and Active Perception
School of Computer Science and Communication
the world consists of smooth regular surfaces with different
reflectance properties.
One can assume that a discontinuity in image brightness
corresponds to a discontinuity in (and their combinations):
• depth,
• surface orientation,

February 11, 2008

• reflectance, or
• illumination.
Thus, find discontinuities in image brightness (edges) and char-
acterize these with respect to the physical phenomena that gave
rise to them.
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Edge detection applications

Example: Line drawing
• In computer vision:
- object recognition
- line drawing analysis
- motion algorithms
• In image analysis:
- segmentation
- enhancement
Note: An edge representation may correspond to substantial
data reduction
• Moreover: If a perfect line structure can be computed, sub-
sequent analysis will be simplified
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 Example: Line drawing Example: Line drawing

Luminance and second order derivative. Noisy luminance and second order derivative.

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Why edges?
How do edges look in practice?

Ideal models:

Step edge Ramp edge Line Ridge

In practice, edges are blurred and noisy.

Problem: Concept of discontinuity doesn’t exist for discrete data!

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 Fundamental problem

Differentiation is ill posed - an arbitrary small perturbation in the input can

lead to arbitrarily large perturbation in the output.
Ex: f (x) = arctan(x) f 0 (x) = 1 Noise reduction: Smoothing
1+x2

• Basic idea: Precede differentiation by smoothing.

f (x) = arctan(x) + ε sin ωx
• Trade-off problem:
- increasing amount of smoothing: stronger suppression of
f 0 (x) = 1
1+x2 + εω cos ωx . noise, higher distortion of “true” structures.
- decreasing amount of smoothing: more accurate feature
detection, higher number of “false positives”

• The difference εω cos ωx can be arbitrarily large if ω >> 1/ε.

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Basic methods for edge detection

• Linear:
- Differentiation
- High-pass filtering
- Matching with model patterns
• Non-linear:
- Fitting of parameterized edge models
- Non-linear diffusion
• Common approach:
1. Detect edge points
2. Link these to polygons
3. Abstraction: Fit to model (straight lines, splines, ellipses )

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 Method: gradients and derivatives
Edge attributes and problems

• Attributes:
- Position
- Orientation
- Strength
- Diffuseness (width)
• Problems: • Most methods are gradient based
- Noise • Detection of maxima of gradient
- Interference (nearby structures at different scales) • Detection of zero crossings of second derivative
- Physical interpretation • Edge pixels need to be connected together to get to a se-
quence of edge points (edge linking)
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The gradient

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 Gradient

Question?

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Gradient
Gradient

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 Gradient

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Magnitude
Basic edge detection

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 In practice In practice
Edges are found by thresholding on the magnitude!

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Sobel operator, Cont.

Sobel operator

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 Sobel operator and noise suppression Different filter types

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Zero crossings - Laplacian operator

Example: Roberts vs. Prewitt filter
Instead of the maxima of the gradient, we search the zero crossings of the
The principal edges are better detected.
second derivative.

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 LoG and DoG Difference of Gaussians
The 2D LoG function centered on zero and with Gaussian stan-
dard deviation σ has the form:

The LoG operator can be very effectively approximated by con-

volution with a mask that is the difference of two Gaussian aver-
aging masks – this is called the Difference of Gaussians – DoG.

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The Laplacian operator - Properties Laplacian operator

• Advantages:
- Closer to mechanisms of visual perception
- One parameter only (size of the filter)
- No threshold
- Produces closed contours
• Disadvantages:
- Is more sensitive to noise (usage of second derivative)
- No information on the orientation of the contour
• Combination of gradient and contour:
- Search for zero-crossings of the Laplacian in the neighbor-
hood of local maxima of the gradient
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 Zero crossings Detecting Edges by Matching

Idea: Match local image patches to set of edge models with

different orientation.
Direction: Orientation of best match (strongest response)
Edge strength: Strongest response
Example:
−1 1

 0 √2  1 1

 √2 0 
−1 1 , −√2 0 , −1 −1 , 0 √2

Natural measure: Normalized cross correlation

Cfg
C̃ f g = p p
C f f Cgg

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The Marr-Hildreth method Marr/Hildreth example

• Zero-crossings of ∇2(Gaussian)
• Motivation:
- Gaussian function best compromise between detection and
localization.
- Intensity change = Peak in 1st derivative =
Zero-crossing in 2nd derivative
- Rotational invariance ⇒ choose ∇2
• Detect zero-crossings in the result of convolving f by
x2 + y2 − 2t
∇2 g(x, y;t) = √ g(x, y;t) Marr/Hildreth edge detection is based on the zero-crossings of the Laplacian
t2 of the Gaussian operator applied to the image for various values of sigma, the
standard deviation of the Gaussian. Image shows a mosaic of zero-crossings
1 − x2 +y2
g(x, y;t) = e 2t for four choices of sigma:1, 2, 3 and 4.
2πt
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Canny example

Gaussian smoothing

Zero-crossings in Marr/Hildreth edge detection always form connected, closed

contours. This comes at the expense of localization for larger values of sigma.
Canny edge detection does a better job of localization - with Canny edge de-
tection, the edge segments can become disconnected.
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 Gradient Gradient orientation

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Gradient orientation

Non-maximum suppression

Implementation by discrete local search

1. Interpolate
- gradient magnitude, and
- gradient direction
2. Perform local search at each point
⇒ gives edge points that can be linked into polygons.

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 Non-maximum suppression
Gradient orientation

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 Hysteresis thresholding
Hysteresis thresholding
- Motivation: Raw thresholding on gradient magnitude may result in highly
fragmented edges.

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Edge linking Differential geometric edge definition

Link neighboring edge pixels to connected contours. Non-maximum suppression:

Each point has strength | ∇L | and orientation Θ. • Edge point = point where the gradient magnitude assumes a
maximum in the gradient direction.
Algorithm: ∀ pixels
if (| ∇L |> threshold) This can be expressed in terms of
∀ neighbor’s Gradient: ∇L = (Lx , Ly )T , and
if (| ∇L | of neighbor > threshold) q
and ( | Θthis − Θneighbor |< threshold) Gradient magnitude: Lx2 + Ly2 .
link these pixels to be connected
Normalized gradient direction:
∇L (Lx , Ly )T
Combine with efficient traversal procedure and mechanism for n̄ = =q
| ∇L | L2 + L2
closing gaps. x y

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 Gradient magnitude
Differential geometric edge definition
Requirements for gradient magnitude to be maximal in gradient direction:

Directional derivative in direction v̄ = (cos α, sin α): Ln̄n̄ = 0 Ln̄n̄n̄ ≤ 0

∂v̄ = cos α∂x + sin α∂y • In terms of coordinates:

Ln̄n̄ = (cos ∂x + sin ∂y )2 L = cos2 αLxx + 2 cos α sin αLxy + sin2 αLyy
Directional derivative in gradient direction: L2 2Lx Ly Ly2
= q x Lxx + q Lxy + q Lyy
Lx Ly Lx2 + Ly2 Lx2 + Ly2 Lx2 + Ly2
∂n̄ = q ∂x + q ∂y
Lx2 + Ly2 Lx2 + Ly2 (Lx2 Lxx + 2Lx Ly Lxy + Ly2 Lyy )
= q =0
Lx2 + Ly2
Denote:
• Since denominator is irrelevant, edges are given by
Lx Ly
∂n̄ L = Ln̄ = q Lx + q Ly Lx2 Lxx + 2Lx Ly Lxy + Ly2 Lyy = 0
Lx2 + Ly2 2 2
Lx + Ly
Lx3 Lxxx + 3Lx2 Ly Lxxy + 3Lx Ly2 Lxyy + Ly3 Lyyy ≤ 0

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Summary

Readings

• Related sections of Chapter 4, 5 and 10

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