Experience with the Generalized Hough Transform

Abstract : The Hough Transform is a method for detecting curves by exploiting the duality between points on a curve and parameters of that curve. The initial work showed how to detect both analytic curves (Hough, 1962; Duda and Hart, 1972) and non-analytic curves (Merlin and Farber, 1975), in the case of binary edge images. This work was generalized to the detection of some analytic curves in grey level images, specifically lines (O'Gorman and Clowes, 1973), circles (Kimme et al., 1975), and parabolas (Wechsler and Sklansky, 1977). Recently, the Hough technique has been extended to the detection of arbitrary non-analytic shapes in grey level images (Ballard), 1979). This shape detection scheme has been implemented and tested on a variety of artificial images and has found application in the analysis of real aerial images. Experience to date indicates that the technique is robust with respect to occlusions, but requires reliable edge-element orientation determination. (Author)