How can I calculate the curvature of an extracted contour by opencv? - c++

Question

I did use the findcontours() method to extract contour from the image, but I have no idea how to calculate the curvature from a set of contour points. Can somebody help me? Thank you very much!

Answer 1

While the theory behind Gombat's answer is correct, there are some errors in the code as well as in the formulae (the denominator t+n-x should be t+n-t). I have made several changes:
use symmetric derivatives to get more precise locations of curvature maxima
allow to use a step size for derivative calculation (can be used to reduce noise from noisy contours)
works with closed contours
Fixes:
* return infinity as curvature if denominator is 0 (not 0)
* added square calculation in denominator
* correct checking for 0 divisor
std::vector<double> getCurvature(std::vector<cv::Point> const& vecContourPoints, int step)
{
std::vector< double > vecCurvature( vecContourPoints.size() );
if (vecContourPoints.size() < step)
return vecCurvature;
auto frontToBack = vecContourPoints.front() - vecContourPoints.back();
std::cout << CONTENT_OF(frontToBack) << std::endl;
bool isClosed = ((int)std::max(std::abs(frontToBack.x), std::abs(frontToBack.y))) <= 1;
cv::Point2f pplus, pminus;
cv::Point2f f1stDerivative, f2ndDerivative;
for (int i = 0; i < vecContourPoints.size(); i++ )
{
const cv::Point2f& pos = vecContourPoints[i];
int maxStep = step;
if (!isClosed)
{
maxStep = std::min(std::min(step, i), (int)vecContourPoints.size()-1-i);
if (maxStep == 0)
{
vecCurvature[i] = std::numeric_limits<double>::infinity();
continue;
}
}
int iminus = i-maxStep;
int iplus = i+maxStep;
pminus = vecContourPoints[iminus < 0 ? iminus + vecContourPoints.size() : iminus];
pplus = vecContourPoints[iplus > vecContourPoints.size() ? iplus - vecContourPoints.size() : iplus];
f1stDerivative.x = (pplus.x - pminus.x) / (iplus-iminus);
f1stDerivative.y = (pplus.y - pminus.y) / (iplus-iminus);
f2ndDerivative.x = (pplus.x - 2*pos.x + pminus.x) / ((iplus-iminus)/2*(iplus-iminus)/2);
f2ndDerivative.y = (pplus.y - 2*pos.y + pminus.y) / ((iplus-iminus)/2*(iplus-iminus)/2);
double curvature2D;
double divisor = f1stDerivative.x*f1stDerivative.x + f1stDerivative.y*f1stDerivative.y;
if ( std::abs(divisor) > 10e-8 )
{
curvature2D = std::abs(f2ndDerivative.y*f1stDerivative.x - f2ndDerivative.x*f1stDerivative.y) /
pow(divisor, 3.0/2.0 ) ;
}
else
{
curvature2D = std::numeric_limits<double>::infinity();
}
vecCurvature[i] = curvature2D;
}
return vecCurvature;
}

Answer 2

For me curvature is:
where t is the position inside the contour and x(t) resp. y(t) return the related x resp. y value. See here.
So, according to my definition of curvature, one can implement it this way:
std::vector< float > vecCurvature( vecContourPoints.size() );
cv::Point2f posOld, posOlder;
cv::Point2f f1stDerivative, f2ndDerivative;
for (size_t i = 0; i < vecContourPoints.size(); i++ )
{
const cv::Point2f& pos = vecContourPoints[i];
if ( i == 0 ){ posOld = posOlder = pos; }
f1stDerivative.x = pos.x - posOld.x;
f1stDerivative.y = pos.y - posOld.y;
f2ndDerivative.x = - pos.x + 2.0f * posOld.x - posOlder.x;
f2ndDerivative.y = - pos.y + 2.0f * posOld.y - posOlder.y;
float curvature2D = 0.0f;
if ( std::abs(f2ndDerivative.x) > 10e-4 && std::abs(f2ndDerivative.y) > 10e-4 )
{
curvature2D = sqrt( std::abs(
pow( f2ndDerivative.y*f1stDerivative.x - f2ndDerivative.x*f1stDerivative.y, 2.0f ) /
pow( f2ndDerivative.x + f2ndDerivative.y, 3.0 ) ) );
}
vecCurvature[i] = curvature2D;
posOlder = posOld;
posOld = pos;
}
It works on non-closed pointlists as well. For closed contours, you may would like to change the boundary behavior (for the first iterations).
UPDATE:
Explanation for the derivatives:
A derivative for a continuous 1 dimensional function f(t) is:
But we are in a discrete space and have two discrete functions f_x(t) and f_y(t) where the smallest step for t is one.
The second derivative is the derivative of the first derivative:
Using the approximation of the first derivative, it yields to:
There are other approximations for the derivatives, if you google it, you will find a lot.

Answer 3

Here's a python implementation mainly based on Philipp's C++ code. For those interested, more details on the derivation can be found in Chapter 10.4.2 of:
Klette & Rosenfeld, 2004: Digital Geometry
def getCurvature(contour,stride=1):
curvature=[]
assert stride<len(contour),"stride must be shorther than length of contour"
for i in range(len(contour)):
before=i-stride+len(contour) if i-stride<0 else i-stride
after=i+stride-len(contour) if i+stride>=len(contour) else i+stride
f1x,f1y=(contour[after]-contour[before])/stride
f2x,f2y=(contour[after]-2*contour[i]+contour[before])/stride**2
denominator=(f1x**2+f1y**2)**3+1e-11
curvature_at_i=np.sqrt(4*(f2y*f1x-f2x*f1y)**2/denominator) if denominator > 1e-12 else -1
curvature.append(curvature_at_i)
return curvature

Answer 4

EDIT:
you can use convexityDefects from openCV, here's a link
a code example to find fingers based in their contour (variable res) source
def calculateFingers(res,drawing): # -> finished bool, cnt: finger count
# convexity defect
hull = cv2.convexHull(res, returnPoints=False)
if len(hull) > 3:
defects = cv2.convexityDefects(res, hull)
if type(defects) != type(None): # avoid crashing. (BUG not found)
cnt = 0
for i in range(defects.shape[0]): # calculate the angle
s, e, f, d = defects[i][0]
start = tuple(res[s][0])
end = tuple(res[e][0])
far = tuple(res[f][0])
a = math.sqrt((end[0] - start[0]) ** 2 + (end[1] - start[1]) ** 2)
b = math.sqrt((far[0] - start[0]) ** 2 + (far[1] - start[1]) ** 2)
c = math.sqrt((end[0] - far[0]) ** 2 + (end[1] - far[1]) ** 2)
angle = math.acos((b ** 2 + c ** 2 - a ** 2) / (2 * b * c)) # cosine theorem
if angle <= math.pi / 2: # angle less than 90 degree, treat as fingers
cnt += 1
cv2.circle(drawing, far, 8, [211, 84, 0], -1)
return True, cnt
return False, 0
in my case, i used about the same function to estimate the bending of board while extracting the contour
OLD COMMENT:
i am currently working in about the same, great information in this post, i'll come back with a solution when i'll have it ready
from Jonasson's answer, Shouldn't be here a tuple on the right side too?, i believe it won't unpack:
f1x,f1y=(contour[after]-contour[before])/stride
f2x,f2y=(contour[after]-2*contour[i]+contour[before])/stride**2