Persistence-based Hough Transform for Line Detection

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Ferner, Johannes, Huber, Stefan, Messineo, Saverio, Pop, Angel, Uray, Martin
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Ferner, Johannes
Huber, Stefan
Messineo, Saverio
Pop, Angel
Uray, Martin
author_facet Ferner, Johannes
Huber, Stefan
Messineo, Saverio
Pop, Angel
Uray, Martin
contents The Hough transform is a popular and classical technique in computer vision for the detection of lines (or more general objects). It maps a pixel into a dual space -- the Hough space: each pixel is mapped to the set of lines through this pixel, which forms a curve in Hough space. The detection of lines then becomes a voting process to find those lines that received many votes by pixels. However, this voting is done by thresholding, which is susceptible to noise and other artifacts. In this work, we present an alternative voting technique to detect peaks in the Hough space based on persistent homology, which very naturally addresses limitations of simple thresholding. Experiments on synthetic data show that our method significantly outperforms the original method, while also demonstrating enhanced robustness. This work seeks to inspire future research in two key directions. First, we highlight the untapped potential of Topological Data Analysis techniques and advocate for their broader integration into existing methods, including well-established ones. Secondly, we initiate a discussion on the mathematical stability of the Hough transform, encouraging exploration of mathematically grounded improvements to enhance its robustness.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2504_16114
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Persistence-based Hough Transform for Line Detection
Ferner, Johannes
Huber, Stefan
Messineo, Saverio
Pop, Angel
Uray, Martin
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
The Hough transform is a popular and classical technique in computer vision for the detection of lines (or more general objects). It maps a pixel into a dual space -- the Hough space: each pixel is mapped to the set of lines through this pixel, which forms a curve in Hough space. The detection of lines then becomes a voting process to find those lines that received many votes by pixels. However, this voting is done by thresholding, which is susceptible to noise and other artifacts. In this work, we present an alternative voting technique to detect peaks in the Hough space based on persistent homology, which very naturally addresses limitations of simple thresholding. Experiments on synthetic data show that our method significantly outperforms the original method, while also demonstrating enhanced robustness. This work seeks to inspire future research in two key directions. First, we highlight the untapped potential of Topological Data Analysis techniques and advocate for their broader integration into existing methods, including well-established ones. Secondly, we initiate a discussion on the mathematical stability of the Hough transform, encouraging exploration of mathematically grounded improvements to enhance its robustness.
title Persistence-based Hough Transform for Line Detection
topic Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.16114