Two related methods for hierarchical representation of curve information are presented. First, edge pyramids are defined and discussed. An edge pyramid is a sequence of successively lower resolution images, each image containing a summary of the edge or curve information in iLs predecessor. This summary includes the average magnitude and direction in a neighborhood of the preceding image, as well as an intercept in that neighborhood and a measure of the error in the direction estimate. An edge quadtree is a variable-resolution representation of the linear information in the image. It is constructed by recursively splitting the image into quadrants based on magnitude, direction and intercept information. Advantages of the edge quadtree representation are its ability to represent several linear features in a single tree, its registration with the original image, and its ability to perform many common operations efficiently.

Date Published: 12 November 1981
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 0281, Techniques and Applications of Image Understanding, (12 November 1981); doi: 10.1117/12.965756

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 0281:
Techniques and Applications of Image Understanding
James J. Pearson, Editor(s)