Computer Vision

Edge Detection
 Origin of Edges

surface normal discontinuity

depth discontinuity

surface color discontinuity

illumination discontinuity

• Edges are caused by a variety of factors

2
3
Profiles of image intensity edges

4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Image gradient
• The gradient of an image f(x,y):

• The gradient points in the direction of most rapid change in intensity

T
h
e
p
i
c
t
u
r
e
c
a
n
'
t
b
e
d
i
s
p
l
a
y
e
d
.

n The gradient direction is given by:

n The edge strength is given by the gradient magnitude

11
The discrete gradient
• How can we differentiate a digital image f[x,y]?
• Option 1: reconstruct a continuous image, then take gradient
• Option 2: take discrete derivative (finite difference)

12
13
14
15
16
17
18
 Some Gradient Maks
Possible filters to find gradients along vertical and horizontal directions:

Averaging provides noise

suppression

This gives more importance to the

center point.

19
Image gradient

• An example using Prewitt filter

20
 Effect of noise

• Consider a single row or column of the image

• Plotting intensity as a function of position gives a signal

21
22
Solution: Smooth first

Look for peaks in 23

Effect of Smoothing

Note: Sometimes, sum of absolute values of gradients is used as an

indicator of edge strength. 24
Effect of Smoothing

Note: Sometimes, sum of absolute values of gradients is used as an

indicator of edge strength. 25
Smoothing with Gaussian filter

26
 Derivative of Gaussian

• This saves us one operation:

27
Derivative of Gaussian

• Apply these filters to get horizontal and vertical gradient images.

• Calculate the gradient magnitude image and look for the peaks in
gradient magnitude image.

28
An example
Zero Crossings for Edge Detection
• Consider

Laplacian of Gaussian
operator

Zero-crossings of bottom graph 30

 2D edge detection filters

Laplacian of Gaussian

Gaussian derivative of Gaussian

• The Laplacian operator:

31
Edge Detection

n The Laplacian of an image f(x,y) is a second-order

derivative defined as
¶2 f ¶2 f
Ñ f = 2 + 2
2

¶x ¶y

Digital approximations for Laplacian operator:

32
Edge Detection

One simple method to find zero-

crossings is black/white thresholding:
1. Set all positive values to white
2. Set all negative values to black
3. Determine the black/white
transitions.

33
Edge Detection
n The Laplacian of a Gaussian (LoG) filter

Digital approximations of (inverted) LoG:

34
Example

original 35
Example

LoG 36
Difference of Gaussian (DoG) operator

• Laplacian of Gaussian can be approximated by the difference

between two Gaussians.

37
Example

(a) (b) (b)-(a)

38
The Canny edge detector

n original image
39
The Canny edge detector

n norm of the gradient

40
The Canny edge detector

n thresholding
41
The Canny edge detector

n thinning
(non-maximum suppression) 42
 Non-maximum suppression

• Check if pixel is local maximum along gradient direction

• requires checking interpolated pixels p and r

43
Non-maximum suppression

44
Edge linking: Hysteresis thresholding

• The threshold used to find starting point may be large in following

the edge.
• This leads to broken edge curves.
• The trick is to use two thresholds: A large one when starting an edge
chain, a small one while following it.

45
Edge linking: Hysteresis thresholding

46