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    Sobel Operator

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    pacho herrera
    The Sobel operator is used for edge detection in images. It is similar to the Prewitt operator but has adjustable coefficients. The vertical Sobel mask detects vertical edges by calculating the difference between pixel intensities to the left and right of edges. The horizontal mask detects horizontal edges by calculating the difference above and below pixels. Applying the masks to a sample image highlights vertical edges with the vertical mask and horizontal edges with the horizontal mask. The Sobel operator detects more edges than Prewitt due to assigning higher weights to pixel intensities around edges.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    Sobel Operator

    Uploaded by

    pacho herrera
    36 views4 pages
    The Sobel operator is used for edge detection in images. It is similar to the Prewitt operator but has adjustable coefficients. The vertical Sobel mask detects vertical edges by calculating the difference between pixel intensities to the left and right of edges. The horizontal mask detects horizontal edges by calculating the difference above and below pixels. Applying the masks to a sample image highlights vertical edges with the vertical mask and horizontal edges with the horizontal mask. The Sobel operator detects more edges than Prewitt due to assigning higher weights to pixel intensities around edges.

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    The Sobel operator is used for edge detection in images. It is similar to the Prewitt operator but has adjustable coefficients. The vertical Sobel mask detects vertical edges by calculating the difference between pixel intensities to the left and right of edges. The horizontal mask detects horizontal edges by calculating the difference above and below pixels. Applying the masks to a sample image highlights vertical edges with the vertical mask and horizontal edges with the horizontal mask. The Sobel operator detects more edges than Prewitt due to assigning higher weights to pixel intensities around edges.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    36 views4 pages

    Sobel Operator

    Uploaded by

    pacho herrera
    The Sobel operator is used for edge detection in images. It is similar to the Prewitt operator but has adjustable coefficients. The vertical Sobel mask detects vertical edges by calculating the difference between pixel intensities to the left and right of edges. The horizontal mask detects horizontal edges by calculating the difference above and below pixels. Applying the masks to a sample image highlights vertical edges with the vertical mask and horizontal edges with the horizontal mask. The Sobel operator detects more edges than Prewitt due to assigning higher weights to pixel intensities around edges.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
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    04/05/2021 Sobel Operator - Tutorialspoint

    Sobel Operator

    The sobel operator is very similar to Prewitt operator. It is also a derivate mask and is used for edge
    detection. Like Prewitt operator sobel operator is also used to detect two kinds of edges in an
    image:

    Vertical direction
    Horizontal direction

    Difference with Prewitt Operator


    The major difference is that in sobel operator the coefficients of masks are not fixed and they can
    be adjusted according to our requirement unless they do not violate any property of derivative
    masks.

    Following is the vertical Mask of Sobel Operator:

    -1 0 1

    -2 0 2

    -1 0 1

    This mask works exactly same as the Prewitt operator vertical mask. There is only one difference
    that is it has “2” and “-2” values in center of first and third column. When applied on an image this
    mask will highlight the vertical edges.

    How it works

    When we apply this mask on the image it prominent vertical edges. It simply works like as first order
    derivate and calculates the difference of pixel intensities in a edge region.
    As the center column is of zero so it does not include the original values of an image but rather it
    calculates the difference of right and left pixel values around that edge. Also the center values of
    both the first and third column is 2 and -2 respectively.

    This give more weight age to the pixel values around the edge region. This increase the edge
    intensity and it become enhanced comparatively to the original image.

    Following is the horizontal Mask of Sobel Operator

    https://www.tutorialspoint.com/dip/sobel_operator.htm 1/4
    04/05/2021 Sobel Operator - Tutorialspoint

    -1 -2 -1

    0 0 0

    1 2 1

    Above mask will find edges in horizontal direction and it is because that zeros column is in
    horizontal direction. When you will convolve this mask onto an image it would prominent horizontal
    edges in the image. The only difference between it is that it have 2 and -2 as a center element of
    first and third row.

    How it works

    This mask will prominent the horizontal edges in an image. It also works on the principle of above
    mask and calculates difference among the pixel intensities of a particular edge. As the center row of
    mask is consist of zeros so it does not include the original values of edge in the image but rather it
    calculate the difference of above and below pixel intensities of the particular edge. Thus increasing
    the sudden change of intensities and making the edge more visible.

    Now it’s time to see these masks in action:

    Sample Image

    Following is a sample picture on which we will apply above two masks one at time.

    After applying Vertical Mask

    After applying vertical mask on the above sample image, following image will be obtained.

    https://www.tutorialspoint.com/dip/sobel_operator.htm 2/4
    04/05/2021 Sobel Operator - Tutorialspoint

    After applying Horizontal Mask

    After applying horizontal mask on the above sample image, following image will be obtained

    Comparison

    As you can see that in the first picture on which we apply vertical mask, all the vertical edges are
    more visible than the original image. Similarly in the second picture we have applied the horizontal
    mask and in result all the horizontal edges are visible.
    So in this way you can see that we can detect both horizontal and vertical edges from an image.
    Also if you compare the result of sobel operator with Prewitt operator, you will find that sobel

    https://www.tutorialspoint.com/dip/sobel_operator.htm 3/4
    04/05/2021 Sobel Operator - Tutorialspoint

    operator finds more edges or make edges more visible as compared to Prewitt Operator.

    This is because in sobel operator we have allotted more weight to the pixel intensities around the
    edges.

    Applying more weight to mask

    Now we can also see that if we apply more weight to the mask, the more edges it will get for us.
    Also as mentioned in the start of the tutorial that there is no fixed coefficients in sobel operator, so
    here is another weighted operator

    -1 0 1

    -5 0 5

    -1 0 1

    If you can compare the result of this mask with of the Prewitt vertical mask, it is clear that this mask
    will give out more edges as compared to Prewitt one just because we have allotted more weight in
    the mask.

    https://www.tutorialspoint.com/dip/sobel_operator.htm 4/4

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