Square detection based on distance distribution

This paper presents a method for the square detection based on distance distribution of the edge points of the image. The orientation line of the edge point is defined first, then for each pixel of the image, the distances between the pixel and the orientation lines of the edge points in the defined neighborhood of the pixel are computed to obtain the feature length and feature energy of the pixel, and further attain the feature length distribution map and feature energy distribution map of the whole image. Local maxima detection in the feature energy map is subsequently performed to find the potential center of the squares, and the corresponding feature length of the found potential center is also obtained. Additive steps are performed to verify and determine the centers of the squares. Synthetic images and natural images are used to prove the capability of the presented method for square detection. The experiments exhibit good performance for detecting the single square or the nested ones.