Finding edges in an image

Finding edges in images is a good way of reducing a complex image that contains a lot of noise and distractions to a very simple image containing the most prominent outlines. This can be useful as our first step of the analysis process, such as in image classification, or as the process of importing line outlines into computer graphics software packages.

In this recipe, we will learn how to use the scikit-image package and the Canny algorithm to find the edges in a complex image.

Getting ready

For this recipe, we will need to import the Matplotlib pyplot module as plt, the imread routine from the skimage.io module, and the canny routine from the skimage.feature module:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from skimage.io import imread
from skimage.feature import canny

The canny routine implements the edge detection algorithm. Let’s see how to use it.

How to do it…

Follow these steps to learn how to use the scikit-image package...