A novel line detection algorithm based on endpoints estimation

Line segment is the most important feature for shape analysis and object recognition. In this study, a novel line detection method starting from endpoints is proposed. Firstly, the junctions and breakpoints are detected from the edge map. Then the connected edge pixels between any two junctions or breakpoints will be extracted, and taken as a line segment or a curve by using small eigenvalue analysis. Next, the corners are detected from each curve. In this way, each curve is divided into several parts by the corners, and each part between two corners is identified by using the small eigenvalue analysis. We have tested our algorithm on a wide collection of images and compared it with a lot of proposed line detectors. The results show that our algorithm is efficient for extracting line segments from an image.