METHOD OF RECOGNIZING A CIRCULAR ARC SEGMENT FOR AN IMAGE PROCESSING APPARATUS

A method of recognizing an arcuate or circular arc segment is used with an image processing apparatus. In a first step, two arbitray image structuring points are selected as segmenting end points from the dot-line image data. next, an image structuring point among the image structuring points present within a segment divided by the segment end points that is located furthest from and in a direction perpendicular to a straight line connecting the given structuring points and within a distance which is equal to or larger than a constant distance is extracted. The, three consecutive, adjacent polygonal-line structuring points are recognized as an arcuate or circular arc segment when a distance between a virtual circle passing through the three adjacent points and a median point of two line segments formed by the three consecutive points is equal to or less than the constant distance.