An Algorithm for Extracting Lines Directly from the Input Image to Improve Speed

Abstract

This paper presents a fast and accurate line extraction algorithm. Conventional line extraction algorithms first extract the edge pixels and then connect these edge pixels into lines. In contrast the proposed algorithm extracts the lines directly from the input image by tracing the perimeter of an intensity region and then uses simple linear regression to compute the equations of the lines. This proposed method allows the algorithm to use the intensity information in the image to correlate the edge pixels, thus simplifying the computation of the lines and increasing the robustness in the presence of noise. Experiments were performed on a variety of synthetic and natural images and demonstrated that the algorithm can extract lines reliably, while realizing a large improvement in speed over the conventional algorithms.