Corner detector based on global and local curvature properties

Abstract

This paper proposes a curvature-based corner detector that detects both fine and coarse features accurately at low computational cost. First, it extracts contours from a Canny edge map. Second, it computes the absolute value of curvature of each point on a contour at a low scale and regards local maxima of absolute curvature as initial corner candidates. Third, it uses an adaptive curvature threshold to remove round corners from the initial list. Finally, false corners due to quantization noise and trivial details are eliminated by evaluating the angles of corner candidates in a dynamic region of support. The proposed detector was compared with popular corner detectors on planar curves and gray-level images, respectively, in a subjective manner as well as with a feature correspondence test. Results reveal that the proposed detector performs extremely well in both fields. © 2008 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers.