ADVANCED EDGE

DETECTION TECHNIQUES
The Canny and the Shen - Castan
Methods
 Edge Detection
• An edge is a boundary between an object
and the background, and indicates the
boundary between overlapping objects.
• Edges form the outline of an object, so if
the edges are identified in an image
accurately, then all the objects can be
located and basic properties such as area,
perimeter can be measured.
• Edge detection is based on the
relationship a pixel has with its neighbors.
 Edge Detection
• Edges, in an image are defined as
locations where there is a significant
variation in the gray level or color of pixel
in some direction.
• Edge detection extracts and localizes
points (pixels) around which a large
change in image brightness has occurred.
• This can help in the process of
segmentation
 Traditional Approaches
Ideal Step Edge :-
(The most common definition of an edge)
• In 1-d the edge is simply a change in
gray level occurring at one specific
location (fig.1a).
• The greater the change in the level, the
easier the edge is to detect.
Step Edge Detection
 Problems in Edge Detection
• Problems:-
1)Because of digitization:-The image may be
sampled in such a way so that change in
gray level may extend across some
number of pixels. Fig 1b-d.
2)Because of noise:-Due to factors such as
light intensity, type of camera and lens,
motion, temperature, dust and others.
 Noise

Two types of noise are of interest in image analysis:-

1) Signal –independent:-noise is a random set of gray
levels, statistically independent of the data. It
occurs during electronically transmission of
image. If A is a perfect image and N is the noise
that occurs during transmission, then the final
image B is
B=A+N
2) Signal-dependent noise:- In this the level of the
noise value at each point in the image is a function
of the grey level there.
 Derivative Operators

• An operator, that is sensitive to change in gray level will

operate as an edge detector- A derivative operator does this.
• Interpretation of derivative:- The rate of change of function. The
rate of change of the gray levels in an image is large near an
edge and small in constant areas.
• In images are 2-D, so level changes are considered in many
directions. For this reason partial derivatives of the image are
used with respect to the principal directions x and y.
Let A (x, y) be an image then the gradient is defined as:

∆A (x ,y) = (∂A / ∂x, ∂A / ∂y)

 Gradient operators
Because image is discrete, the derivative at a pixel is approximated
by the difference in gray levels over some local region.
The simplest approximation is the operator ∆1:

Δx1A(x, y) = A(x, y) – A(x-1, y)

Δx2A(x, y) = A(x, y) – A(x, y-1)

Problem with this operator:- It does not compute the gradient at the
point (x, y), but at (x-1/2, y-1/2)
Assumption:- the grey levels vary linearly between the pixels.
 Gradient operators
A better choice for an approximation is
Δx2 A(x, y) = A(x+1, y) – A(x-1 ,y)

Δy2 A(x, y) = A(x, y+1) – A(x, y-1)

This operator is symmetrical with respect to the pixel
(x, y). It does not consider the value of the pixel at
(x, y).
The edge response is given by:

Gmag = √((∂A ⁄ ∂x)2 + (∂A ⁄∂y)2)

 Gradient operators
and the direction of the edge is
approximately:

Gdir = atan (∂A ⁄∂y) ⁄ ( ∂A ⁄ ∂x)

Edge pixel- which exceeds the threshold

value
Gradient operators examples
Examples
Examples
 Measures of Performance of Edge
Detection Schemes
• False Positive
• False Negative
• Using Function (Pratt 1978)

E1 =∑(1/(1+αd(i)2)) / max(IA,II)
IA = the number of edge pixels found by the edge detector
II= the number of edge pixels in the test image
d(i)=the distance between the actual ith pixel and the one
found by the edge detector
α is used for scaling
 Measures of Performance
• Evaluation scheme based on local edge coherence (Kitchen
and Rosenfeld)
(a) It measures how well an edge pixel is continued on the left;
this function is
L(k) =a(d,dk) a(kπ/4,d+π/2) if neighbor k is an edge pixel
0 otherwise
where d is the edge direction at the pixel being tested
d0 is the edge direction at its neighbor to the right
d1 is the direction of the upper-right neighbor, and so on
Counterclockwise about the pixel involved
a= the measure of the angular difference between any two angles
 Measures…
a(α,β) = π -|α-β| ⁄ π
(b) A similar function measures directional continuity on the
right of the pixel being evaluated:
R(k) = a(d,dk) a(kπ/4,d+π/2) if neighbor k is an edge
pixel
0 otherwise
(c) C= Overall continuity measure
= average(L(k), R(k))
(d) Then measure of thinness (T) is applied.
(e) The overall evaluation of the edge detector is:
(f) E2 = γC + (1-γ) T
 Template-Based Edge Detection

• This uses a small, discrete template as a model of an

edge instead of using a derivative operator.
• Exampes:-
(a) Sobel Edge Detector
(b) Kirsch Edge Detector
 Sobel Edge Detector

• It uses templates in the form of convolutional masks

having the following values.

-1 -2 -1 -1 0 1
0 0 0 = SY -2 0 2 = Sx
1 2 1 -1 0 1

For a pixel at image coordinates (I,j), SX SY can be

computed by
 Sobel Edge Detector
SX = I[i-1][j+1]+2I[i][j+1]+I[i+1][j+1]- (I[i-
1][j-1]+2I[i][j-1]+I[i+1][j-1])

SY = I[i+1][j+1]+2I[i+1][j]+I[i+1][j-1]-(I[i-1][j+1]+
2I[i-1][j]+I[i-1][j-1])
• After SX Sy are computed for each pixel, resulting
magnitude must be thresholded
Figure
 Kirsch Edge Detector
• These templates has different motivation than
Sobel’s.
• For the 3X3 case the templates are:
-3 -3 5 -3 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 -3
K0= -3 0 5 K1=-3 0 5 K2= -3 0 -3 K3= 5 0 -3
-3 -3 5 -3 -3 -3 -3 -3 -3 -3 -3 -3

5 -3 -3 -3 -3 -3 -3 -3 -3 -3 -3 -3
K4=5 0 -3 K5= 5 0 -3 K6= -3 0 -3 K7= -3 0 5
5 -3 -3 5 5 -3 5 5 5 -3 5 5
 Kirsch Edge Detector
•These masks are to observe the grey level change near an edge
having various orientations, rather than approximation to the
gradient.
•There are one mask for each of eight compass directions.
•For example, a large response to mask K0 implies a vertical edge
(horizontal gradient) at the pixel corresponding to the center of the
mask.
Method:-
•To find the edges, an image I is convolved with all of the masks at
each pixel position. The response of the operator at a pixel is the
maximum of the responses of any of the eight masks. The direction
of the edge pixel is quantized into eight possibilities and is π /4 *I
where I is the number of the mask having the largest response.
 EDGE MODELS : Marr- Hildreth
Edge Detection
Marr studied the literature on mammalian
visual systems and summarized these in five
major points:-
1. In natural images, features of interest occur at
a variety of scales. No single operator can
function at all of these scales, so the result of
operations at each of scales should be
combined.
2. Diffraction patterns does not occur in a natural
scene, so some local averaging (smoothing)
must take place.
 Marr-Hildreth Edge Detection
3.The optimal smoothing filter that matches the
observed requirements of biological vision is the
Gaussian.
4. When a change in intensity (edge) occurs, there
is an extreme value in the first derivative or
intensity. This corresponds to a zero crossing in
the second derivative.
5. The orientation-independent differential operator
of lowest order is the Laplacian.
 Marr-Hildreth Edge Detection
Algorithm
1. Convolve the image I with a two-
dimensional Gaussian function.
2. Complete the Laplacian of the convolved
image; call this L
3. Edge pixels are those for which there is a
zero crossing in L.
 Marr…
• A convolution in two dimensions is given by:

I* G(I, j) =∑ ∑I(n, m) G(i-n, j-m)

n m

• The function G being convolved with the image

is a two dimensional Gaussian:

Gσ(x, y) = σ2 exp{-(x2 + y2) ⁄ σ2

Gaussian must be sampled to create
 Marr…
a small two dimensional image.
• After the convolution, the Laplacian
operator can be applied.
Δ2 = ∂2 ⁄ ∂x2 + ∂2 ⁄ ∂y2
Examples
Examples
 Strength and weaknesses
Advantage:
This is much better than the previous ones in
cases of low signal to noise ratio.
Disadvantages of the method:-
1) Low evaluation.
2) Locality is not good, the edges are not
always thin.
 The Canny Edge Detector

Canny specified three issues that an edge detector

must address. They are:-
1.Error rate:-The edge detector should respond only to
edges, and should find all of them; no edges should be
missed.
2.Localization:- The distance between the edge pixels
as found by the edge detector and the actual edge
should be as small as possible.
3.Response:- The edge detector should not identify
multiple edge pixels where only a single edge exists.
 Canny Edge Detector
• Canny assumed that a step edge subject to white Gaussian
noise.
• The edge detector was assumed to be a convolution filter f that
would smooth the noise and locate the edge.
•So the problem is to identify the one filter that optimizes the three
edge detection criteria.
•In one –dimension, the response of the filter f to an edge G is
given by a convolution integral
-W

H = ∫ G(-x)f(x)dx
W
 Canny…
•The filter is assumed to be zero outside of the region
[-W, W].
•Mathematically the three criteria are expressed as:
0 W

SNR= (A | ∫ f(x) dx | ) ⁄ n0 √ ∫ f2(x) dx

-W -W

Localization = A | f(0)| ⁄ n0 √ ∫ f2(x) dx

-W
 Canny…

∞ ∞

xzc = π (∫ f2(x) dx ) ⁄ ( ∫ f ‘ 2(x) dx)

-∞ -∞

•The value of SNR is the error rate.

•The localization value represents the reciprocal
of the distance of the located edge from the true
edge.
•The value of xzc is the mean distance between
zero crossings of f’.
 The Canny Edge Detection Algorithm

• Read in the image to be processed I.

• Create a 1D Gaussian mask G to convolve
with I. The standard deviation s of this
Gaussian is a parameter to the edge
detector.
• Create a 1D mask for the first derivative of
the Gaussian in the x and y directions; call
these Gx and Gy. The same s value is used
as in step 2.
Canny Edge Detection ( continued)
•Convolve the image I with G along the rows to give
the x component image IX, and down the columns to
give the y component image Iy.
• Convolve IX with GX to give IX’ , the x component of I
convolved with the derivative of the Gaussian function
and
• Convolve IY with GY to give IY’.
• To view the result the x and y component must be
combined. The magnitude of the result at pixel (x,y) is

M(x,y) = √ IX’(x,y)2 + IY’(x,y)2

 Canny..
• The final step in the Canny edge detector is a
nonmaximum suppression step, where pixels
that are not local maxima are removed.
• As an extra step, Canny suggests thresholding
using hysteresis rather than simply selecting a
threshold value to apply everywhere. Hysteresis
thresholding uses a high threshold Th and low
threshold Tl.
Examples: Canny
Examples : Canny
 The Shen-Castan (ISEF) Edge
Detector
•Canny’s detector defined optimally with respect to a
specific set of criteria.
•Shen and Casten used different function to optimize
following function for 1D):

C2N =( 4 ∫ f2(x)dx. ∫ f’2(x)dx) ⁄ f4(0)

•The function that minimizes CN is the optimal
smoothing function filter for an edge detector.
•The optimal filter function they used is the infinite
symmetric exponential filter (ISEF):
f(x) =( p/2 ) exp(-p|x|)
 Comparison of Two Optimal Edge
Detectors
• Shen-Castan method provides better S/N than
Canny’s filter.It also provides better localization
than Canny’s operator.This is because the
implementation of Canny’s algorithm approximates
his optimal filter by the derivative of a Gaussian,
whereas Shen use the optimal filter directly.
• Since Shen method does not address the multiple
response criterion, it is possible that their method
will create spurious response to noisy and blurred
edges.
Figures