Old and new straight-line detectors: Description and comparison

摘要

Straight-line detection is important in several fields such as robotics, remote sensing, and imagery. The objective of this paper is to present several methods, old and new, used for straight-line detection. We begin by reviewing the standard Hough transform (SHT), then three new methods are suggested: the revisited Hough transform (RHT), the parallel-axis transform (PAT), and the circle transform (CT). These transforms utilize a point-line duality to detect straight lines in an image. The RHT and the PAT should be faster than the SHT and the CT because they use line segments whereas the SHT uses sinusoids and CT uses circles. Moreover, the PAT, RHT, and CT use additions and multiplications whereas the SHT uses trigonometric functions (sine and cosine) for calculation. To compare the methods we analyze the distribution of the frequencies in the accumulators and observe the effect on the detection of false local maxima. We also compare the robustness to noise of the four transforms. Finally, an example with a real image is given.