Abstract
A new algorithm able to efficiently detect a large number of overlapping ellipses with a reduced number of false positives is described. The algorithm estimates the number of candidate ellipse centers in an image with the help of a 2-dimensional accumulator and determines the five ellipse parameters with an ellipse fitting algorithm. The proposed ellipse detection algorithm uses a heuristic to select, among all image points, those with greater probabilities of belonging to an ellipse. This leads to an increase in classification efficiency, even in the presence of noise. Testing has shown that the proposed algorithm detected 97.4% of the ellipses in 100 images. Each image contained ten overlapping ellipses surrounded by noise. The ellipse parameters were determined with great accuracy.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Kharma, N., Moghnieh, H., Yao, J., Guo, Y.P., Abu-Baker, A., Laganiere, J., Rouleau, G., Cheriet, M.: Automatic segmentation of cells from microscopic imagery using ellipse detection. Let Image Process 1, 39–47 (2007)
Kim, E., Haseyama, M., Kitajima, H.: Fast and Robust Ellipse Extraction from Complicated Images (2002)
Zhang, S.C., Liu, Z.Q.: A robust, real-time ellipse detector. Pattern Recogn. 38, 273–287 (2005)
Leroy, B., Medioni, G., Johnson, E., Matthies, L.: Crater detection for autonomous landing on asteroids. Image Vision Comput 19, 787–792 (2001)
Fernandes, A., Nascimento, S.: Automatic water eddy detection in SST maps using random ellipse fitting and vectorial fields for image segmentation. In: Todorovski, L., Lavrač, N., Jantke, K.P. (eds.) DS 2006. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 4265, pp. 77–88. Springer, Heidelberg (2006)
Honkanen, M., Saarenrinne, P., Stoor, T., Niinimaki, J.: Recognition of highly overlapping ellipse-like bubble images. Meas. Sci. Technol. 16, 1760–1770 (2005)
Li, H.W., Lavin, M.A., Lemaster, R.J.: Fast Hough Transform - a Hierarchical Approach. Comput Vision Graph 36, 139–161 (1986)
Kiryati, N., Eldar, Y., Bruckstein, A.M.: A Probabilistic Hough Transform. Pattern Recogn. 24, 303–316 (1991)
Bergen, J.R., Shvaytser, H.: A Probabilistic Algorithm for Computing Hough Transforms. J Algorithm 12, 639–656 (1991)
McLaughlin, R.A.: Randomized Hough Transform: Improved ellipse detection with comparison. Pattern Recogn. Lett. 19, 299–305 (1998)
Tsuji, S., Matsumoto, F.: Detection of Ellipses by a Modified Hough Transformation. IEEE T Comput 27, 777–781 (1978)
Aguado, A.S., Montiel, M.E., Nixon, M.S.: On using directional information for parameter space decomposition in ellipse detection. Pattern Recogn. 29, 369–381 (1996)
Qiao, Y., Ong, S.H.: Arc-based evaluation and detection of ellipses. Pattern Recogn. 40, 1990–2003 (2007)
Yuen, H.K., Illingworth, J., Kittler, J.: Detecting Partially Occluded Ellipses Using the Hough Transform. Image Vision Comput 7, 31–37 (1989)
Halir, R., Flusser, J.: Numerically Stable Direct Least Squares Fitting of Ellipses. In: Skala, V. (ed.) Proc. Int. Conf. in Central Europe on Computer Graphics, Visualization and Interactive Digital Media, pp. 125–132 (1998)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Fernandes, A.M. (2008). Detection of a Large Number of Overlapping Ellipses Immersed in Noise. In: Bebis, G., et al. Advances in Visual Computing. ISVC 2008. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 5358. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-89639-5_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-89639-5_1
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-89638-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-89639-5
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)