.. _example_plot_line_hough_transform.py:


=============================
Straight line Hough transform
=============================

The Hough transform in its simplest form is a `method to detect straight lines
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hough_transform>`__.

In the following example, we construct an image with a line intersection.  We
then use the Hough transform to explore a parameter space for straight lines
that may run through the image.

Algorithm overview
------------------

Usually, lines are parameterised as :math:`y = mx + c`, with a gradient
:math:`m` and y-intercept `c`. However, this would mean that :math:`m` goes to
infinity for vertical lines. Instead, we therefore construct a segment
perpendicular to the line, leading to the origin. The line is represented by the
length of that segment, :math:`r`, and the angle it makes with the x-axis,
:math:`\theta`.

The Hough transform constructs a histogram array representing the parameter
space (i.e., an :math:`M \times N` matrix, for :math:`M` different values of the
radius and :math:`N` different values of :math:`\theta`).  For each parameter
combination, :math:`r` and :math:`\theta`, we then find the number of non-zero
pixels in the input image that would fall close to the corresponding line, and
increment the array at position :math:`(r, \theta)` appropriately.

We can think of each non-zero pixel "voting" for potential line candidates. The
local maxima in the resulting histogram indicates the parameters of the most
probably lines. In our example, the maxima occur at 45 and 135 degrees,
corresponding to the normal vector angles of each line.

Another approach is the Progressive Probabilistic Hough Transform [1]_. It is
based on the assumption that using a random subset of voting points give a good
approximation to the actual result, and that lines can be extracted during the
voting process by walking along connected components. This returns the beginning
and end of each line segment, which is useful.

The function `probabilistic_hough` has three parameters: a general threshold
that is applied to the Hough accumulator, a minimum line length and the line gap
that influences line merging. In the example below, we find lines longer than 10
with a gap less than 3 pixels.

References
----------

.. [1] C. Galamhos, J. Matas and J. Kittler,"Progressive probabilistic
       Hough transform for line detection", in IEEE Computer Society
       Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, 1999.

.. [2] Duda, R. O. and P. E. Hart, "Use of the Hough Transformation to
       Detect Lines and Curves in Pictures," Comm. ACM, Vol. 15,
       pp. 11-15 (January, 1972)


.. image:: images/plot_line_hough_transform_1.png
    :align: center


.. image:: images/plot_line_hough_transform_2.png
    :align: center


.. literalinclude:: plot_line_hough_transform.py
    :lines: 58-



**Python source code:** :download:`download <plot_line_hough_transform.py>`
(generated using ``skimage`` |version|)



**IPython Notebook:** :download:`download <./notebook/plot_line_hough_transform.ipynb>`
(generated using ``skimage`` |version|)

