Subpixel determination of imperfect circles characteristics

This article deals with the problem of the determination of characteristics of imperfect circular objects in discrete images, namely the radius and center coordinates. To limit distortion, a multi-level method based on active contours was developed. Its originality is to furnish a set of geometric envelopes in one pass, with a correspondence between grayscale and a regularity scale. The adequacy of this approach was tested with several methods, among them is the Radon-based method. More particularly, this study indicates the relevance of the use of active contours combined with a Radon transform-based method which was improved using a fitting considering the discrete implementation of the Radon transform. (C) 2007 Pattern Recognition Society. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.