I am trying to implement least squares circle fitting following this paper (sorry I can't publish it). The paper states, that we could fit a circle, by calculating the geometric error as the euclidean distance (Xi'') between a specific point (Xi) and the corresponding point on the circle (Xi'). We have three parametres: Xc (a vector of coordinates the center of circle), and R (radius).
I came up with the following MATLAB code (note that I am trying to fit circles, not spheres as it is indicated on the images):
function [ circle ] = fit_circle( X )
% Kör paraméterstruktúra inicializálása
% R - kör sugara
% Xc - kör középpontja
circle.R = NaN;
circle.Xc = [ NaN; NaN ];
% Kezdeti illesztés
% A köz középpontja legyen a súlypont
% A sugara legyen az átlagos négyzetes távolság a középponttól
circle.Xc = mean( X );
d = bsxfun(@minus, X, circle.Xc);
circle.R = mean(bsxfun(@hypot, d(:,1), d(:,2)));
circle.Xc = circle.Xc(1:2)+random('norm', 0, 1, size(circle.Xc));
% Optimalizáció
options = optimset('Jacobian', 'on');
out = lsqnonlin(@ort_error, [circle.Xc(1), circle.Xc(2), circle.R], [], [], options, X);
end
%% Cost function
function [ error, J ] = ort_error( P, X )
%% Calculate error
R = P(3);
a = P(1);
b = P(2);
d = bsxfun(@minus, X, P(1:2)); % X - Xc
n = bsxfun(@hypot, d(:,1), d(:,2)); % || X - Xc ||
res = d - R * bsxfun(@times,d,1./n);
error = zeros(2*size(X,1), 1);
error(1:2:2*size(X,1)) = res(:,1);
error(2:2:2*size(X,1)) = res(:,2);
%% Jacobian
xdR = d(:,1)./n;
ydR = d(:,2)./n;
xdx = bsxfun(@plus,-R./n+(d(:,1).^2*R)./n.^3,1);
ydy = bsxfun(@plus,-R./n+(d(:,2).^2*R)./n.^3,1);
xdy = (d(:,1).*d(:,2)*R)./n.^3;
ydx = xdy;
J = zeros(2*size(X,1), 3);
J(1:2:2*size(X,1),:) = [ xdR, xdx, xdy ];
J(2:2:2*size(X,1),:) = [ ydR, ydx, ydy ];
end
The fitting however is not too good: if I start with the good parameter vector the algorithm terminates at the first step (so there is a local minima where it should be), but if I perturb the starting point (with a noiseless circle) the fitting stops with very large errors. I am sure that I've overlooked something in my implementation.