MSCM-LiFe: Multi-scale cross modal linear feature for horizon detection in maritime images

Abstract: This paper proposes a new method for horizon detection called the multi-scale cross modal linear feature. This method integrates three different concepts related to the presence of horizon in maritime images to increase the accuracy of horizon detection. Specifically it uses the persistence of horizon in multi-scale median filtering, and its detection as a linear feature commonly detected by two different methods, namely the Hough transform of edgemap and the intensity gradient. We demonstrate the performance of the method over 13 videos comprising of more than 3000 frames and show that the proposed method detects horizon with small error in most of the cases, outperforming three state-of-the-art methods.