Fitting an Ellipse to a Set of Data Points

2022-01

There is a module of scikit that deals with the problem of finding in ellipse through a set of data points: https://scikit-image.org/docs/dev/api/skimage.measure.html#skimage.measure.EllipseModel. Please use this module instead of my code.

Old code, don’t use

This old python program fits an ellipse through a given set of points. This ellipse is optimal in the least squares sense. I just keep my code and documentation in case people are interested in obtaining a basic understanding how to attack the problem.

If you still like to use it, as it is available under the MIT license: You can use it in any way you like, but don’t blame me if you don’t like the result.

I will no longer maintain this code, unless the scikit module will disappear.

• fitEllipse.org contains the source code
• fitEllipse.pdf is the pdf made from fitEllipse.org to make the maths readable.
• fitEllipse.py contains the algorithm, obtained by tangling fitEllipse.org
• fit_ellipse_example.py shows an example on how to use the code
• run_fit_ellipse.py makes many test cases.

Before moving this code to github, it was available at http://nicky.vanforeest.com/misc/fitEllipse/fitEllipse.html.