• Identify sudden changes in image

    • most semantic info from an image can be encoded in edges
    • more compact than pixels
  • edges allow us to

    • extract info
    • object recognition
    • recover geometry and viewpoint
  • Where surfaces begin and end help analyze the world; discontinuity

    • surface normal
    • depth
    • surface color
    • illumination
  • Image gradient

  • when you take gradient of intensity, you get peaks


  • Criteria for “optimal”

    • good detection: minimize probability of false positives (edges caused by noise), and false negatives (missing real edges)
    • good localization: edges detected should be as close as possible to true edges
      • i.e., blurred edges make them thicker
    • Single response: return one point only for each true edge point