Q1: Can you use Hough Transforms for other objects, beyond lines and circles?

The Hough transform can be used to identify the parameter(s) of a curve which best fits a set of
given edge points. This edge description is commonly obtained from a feature detecting operator
such as the Canny edge detector and may be noisy, i.e. it may contain multiple edge fragments
corresponding to a single whole feature. Furthermore, as the output of an edge detector defines
only where features are in an image, the work of the Hough transform is to determine both what
the features are (i.e. to detect the feature(s) for which it has a parametric (or other) description)
and how many of them exist in the image.
Q2: Do you have to use edge detectors to vote in Hough Space?

•It’s not feasible to check all combinations of features by fitting a model to each possible subset.
•Voting is a general technique where we let the features vote for all models that are compatible
with it.
–Cycle through features, cast votes for model parameters.
–Look for model parameters that receive a lot of votes.
-Noise & clutter features will cast votes too, but typically their votes should be inconsistent with
the majority of “good” features

Hough Transform is a voting technique that can be used to answer all of these questions.
Main idea:
1. Record vote for each possible line on which each edge point lies.
2. Look for lines that get many votes.

Q3: Numerate the advantages and disadvantages of the Hough transform edge detection?
Q4: Why does the Gaussian give a nice smooth image, but the square filter gives edgy artifacts?
Both filters attenuate high frequencies more than low frequencies, but the square filter exhibits
oscillations in its frequency response. The Gaussian on the other hand shows no oscillations. In
fact, the shape of the frequency response curve is itself (half a) Gaussian. So by choosing an
appropriately sized Gaussian filter we can be fairly confident about what range of spatial
frequencies are still present in the image after filtering, which is not the case of the mean filter.
This has consequences for some edge detection techniques, as mentioned in the section on zero
crossings. (The Gaussian filter also turns out to be very similar to the optimal smoothing filter for
edge detection under the criteria used to derive the Canny edge detector.)
Q5: How does the Nyquist-Shannon theorem relate to the Gaussian pyramid?
• Gaussian blurring is low-pass filtering.
• By blurring we try to sufficiently decrease the Nyquist frequency to avoid aliasing.
Q6: How large should the Gauss blur we use be?

In image processing, a Gaussian blur (also known as Gaussian smoothing) is the result of
blurring an image by a Gaussian function .

It is a widely used effect in graphics software, typically to reduce image noise and reduce detail.
The visual effect of this blurring technique is a smooth blur resembling that of viewing the image
through a translucent screen, distinctly different from the bokeh effect produced by an out-of-focus
lens or the shadow of an object under usual illumination.