Colour edge detection based on the fusion of hue component and principal component analysis

Abstract

Hue component is generally denoted by angle value, so the conventional edge detection operators are incapable to accurately detect edges of hue component. As a result, the popular methods of colour image edge detection usually omit the role of hue component, thus missing some edges caused by hue changes. The authors propose a novel colour edge detection method based on the fusion of hue component and principal component analysis to solve the above problems. First, a novel computational method of hue difference is defined, and then it is applied to classical gradient operators to obtain accurate edges for hue component. Moreover, complete object edges can be obtained by using the edge fusion of the first principal component and hue component of colour image with low-computational complexity. Experimental results show that the proposed approach not only can act on hue component directly and obtain accurate edges caused by hue changes, but also is effective and easy to implement. © The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2013.