An Alternative Approach to Computing Shape Orientation with an Application to Compound Shapes
We consider the method that computes the shape orientation as the direction alpha that maximises the integral of the length of projections, taken to the power of 2N, of all the straight line segments whose end points belong to the shape, to a line that has the slope alpha. We show that for N=1 such a definition of shape orientation is consistent with the shape orientation defined by the axis of the least second moment of inertia. For N > 1 this is not the case, and consequently our new method can produce different results. As an additional benefit our approach leads to a new method for computation of the orientation of compound objects.
shape orientation image processing early vision