Noise resistant gradient calculation and edge detection using local binary patterns

Gradient calculation and edge detection are well-known problems in image processing and the fundament for many approaches for line detection, segmentation, contour extraction, or model fitting. A large variety of algorithms for edge detection already exists but strong image noise is still a challenge. Especially in automatic surveillance and reconnaissance applications with visual-optical, infrared, or SAR imagery, high distance to objects and weak signal-to-noise-ratio are difficult tasks to handle. In this paper, a new approach using Local Binary Patterns (LBPs) is presented, which is a crossover between texture analysis and edge detection. It shows similar results as the Canny edge detector under normal conditions but performs better in presence of noise. This characteristic is evaluated quantitatively with different artificially generated types and levels of noise in synthetic and natural images.