HoughCircles circle detection using opencv and python-

Question

I am trying to use OpenCV\'s (Hough)Circle detection to.. detect circles. I created a solid circle on a black background, tried to play with the parameters, used blur and everyt

Answer 1

If you're not getting HoughCircles to bring you pixel perfect solutions for obvious circles then you're not using it right

Your mistake is you're trying to hand-tune your hyperparameters by yourself. That's not going to work. Have the computer auto-tune the parameters for you:

import numpy as np
import argparse
import cv2
import signal

from functools import wraps
import errno
import os
import copy

ap = argparse.ArgumentParser()
ap.add_argument("-i", "--image", required = True, help = "Path to the image")
args = vars(ap.parse_args())

image = cv2.imread(args["image"])
orig_image = np.copy(image)
output = image.copy()
gray = cv2.cvtColor(image, cv2.COLOR_BGR2GRAY)

cv2.imshow("gray", gray)
cv2.waitKey(0)

circles = None

minimum_circle_size = 100      #this is the range of possible circle in pixels you want to find
maximum_circle_size = 150     #maximum possible circle size you're willing to find in pixels

guess_dp = 1.0

number_of_circles_expected = 1          #we expect to find just one circle
breakout = False

max_guess_accumulator_array_threshold = 100     #minimum of 1, no maximum, (max 300?) the quantity of votes 
                                                #needed to qualify for a circle to be found.
circleLog = []

guess_accumulator_array_threshold = max_guess_accumulator_array_threshold

while guess_accumulator_array_threshold > 1 and breakout == False:
    #start out with smallest resolution possible, to find the most precise circle, then creep bigger if none found
    guess_dp = 1.0
    print("resetting guess_dp:" + str(guess_dp))
    while guess_dp < 9 and breakout == False:
        guess_radius = maximum_circle_size
        print("setting guess_radius: " + str(guess_radius))
        print(circles is None)
        while True:

            #HoughCircles algorithm isn't strong enough to stand on its own if you don't
            #know EXACTLY what radius the circle in the image is, (accurate to within 3 pixels) 
            #If you don't know radius, you need lots of guess and check and lots of post-processing 
            #verification.  Luckily HoughCircles is pretty quick so we can brute force.

            print("guessing radius: " + str(guess_radius) + 
                    " and dp: " + str(guess_dp) + " vote threshold: " + 
                    str(guess_accumulator_array_threshold))

            circles = cv2.HoughCircles(gray, 
                cv2.cv.CV_HOUGH_GRADIENT, 
                dp=guess_dp,               #resolution of accumulator array.
                minDist=100,                #number of pixels center of circles should be from each other, hardcode
                param1=50,
                param2=guess_accumulator_array_threshold,
                minRadius=(guess_radius-3),    #HoughCircles will look for circles at minimum this size
                maxRadius=(guess_radius+3)     #HoughCircles will look for circles at maximum this size
                )

            if circles is not None:
                if len(circles[0]) == number_of_circles_expected:
                    print("len of circles: " + str(len(circles)))
                    circleLog.append(copy.copy(circles))
                    print("k1")
                break
                circles = None
            guess_radius -= 5 
            if guess_radius < 40:
                break;

        guess_dp += 1.5

    guess_accumulator_array_threshold -= 2

#Return the circleLog with the highest accumulator threshold

# ensure at least some circles were found
for cir in circleLog:
    # convert the (x, y) coordinates and radius of the circles to integers
    output = np.copy(orig_image)

    if (len(cir) > 1):
        print("FAIL before")
        exit()

    print(cir[0, :])

    cir = np.round(cir[0, :]).astype("int")

    for (x, y, r) in cir:
        cv2.circle(output, (x, y), r, (0, 0, 255), 2)
        cv2.rectangle(output, (x - 5, y - 5), (x + 5, y + 5), (0, 128, 255), -1)

    cv2.imshow("output", np.hstack([orig_image, output]))
    cv2.waitKey(0)

The above code converts this:

To this:

For more information about what this is doing, see: https://stackoverflow.com/a/46500223/445131