Algorithm to detect corners of paper sheet in photo

Question

What is the best way to detect the corners of an invoice/receipt/sheet-of-paper in a photo? This is to be used for subsequent perspective correction, before OCR.

My

Answer 1

Here you have @Vanuan 's code using C++:

cv::cvtColor(mat, mat, CV_BGR2GRAY);
cv::GaussianBlur(mat, mat, cv::Size(3,3), 0);
cv::Mat kernel = cv::getStructuringElement(cv::MORPH_RECT, cv::Point(9,9));
cv::Mat dilated;
cv::dilate(mat, dilated, kernel);

cv::Mat edges;
cv::Canny(dilated, edges, 84, 3);

std::vector lines;
lines.clear();
cv::HoughLinesP(edges, lines, 1, CV_PI/180, 25);
std::vector::iterator it = lines.begin();
for(; it!=lines.end(); ++it) {
    cv::Vec4i l = *it;
    cv::line(edges, cv::Point(l[0], l[1]), cv::Point(l[2], l[3]), cv::Scalar(255,0,0), 2, 8);
}
std::vector< std::vector > contours;
cv::findContours(edges, contours, CV_RETR_EXTERNAL, CV_CHAIN_APPROX_TC89_KCOS);
std::vector< std::vector > contoursCleaned;
for (int i=0; i < contours.size(); i++) {
    if (cv::arcLength(contours[i], false) > 100)
        contoursCleaned.push_back(contours[i]);
}
std::vector > contoursArea;

for (int i=0; i < contoursCleaned.size(); i++) {
    if (cv::contourArea(contoursCleaned[i]) > 10000){
        contoursArea.push_back(contoursCleaned[i]);
    }
}
std::vector > contoursDraw (contoursCleaned.size());
for (int i=0; i < contoursArea.size(); i++){
    cv::approxPolyDP(Mat(contoursArea[i]), contoursDraw[i], 40, true);
}
Mat drawing = Mat::zeros( mat.size(), CV_8UC3 );
cv::drawContours(drawing, contoursDraw, -1, cv::Scalar(0,255,0),1);