Image corner detection using topology learning

Image corner detection plays an important role in image analysis and recognition. This paper presents a novel corner detector based on the growing neural gas (GNG) network and this proposed detector is called GNG-C. With the GNG network, image topology information can be learned and used to implement corner detection. The GNG-C approach can be described as consisting of the following steps. First, a canny edge detector is used to acquire the contour information of the input image. This edge information is used to train a modified GNG network. A special stopping criterion is defined to terminate network learning. Second, vectors formed between network nodes and their neighbors are used to measure curvatures. Third, dynamic regions of support (ROS) are determined based on these curvatures. These ROS are used to suppress curvature noise. The curvature values of the nodes are then analyzed to estimate the candidate corners. Finally, the candidates are distilled by a non-maxima suppression process to obtain the final set of corners. Experiments on both artificial and real images show that the proposed corner detection method is feasible and effective.