ICY feature detector and edge detector in opencv I need to trace the internal feature boundaries of blobs (blood cells) in OpenCV to train a classifier. 

As a good reference from ICY in java, the following sequence of operations gives good, workable edge contours.

Edge Detector( Feature Detector( CLAHE (Original Image) ) )



[UPDATE1 @Amitay] In the above image, the first reddish blob is the original image, the second one is the result of the Feature Detector operation from ICY and the third one is the result of applying the Edge Detector on the detector features.

Attempting this in OpenCV using the LabEdgeDetector.cpp ( by Austin Walters) followed by Canny Edge detector, I get the following - not so smooth results. There are lots of X and Y directional artifacts throwing the edge detection off.



From what I can see in the java source, the ICY feature detector plugin uses steerable filters for its operation (steerabledetector.java).


Are there equivalent featuredetector algos in OpenCV?  If so please list them.
How can I improve on my results? Please guide me on any other sequence of existing OpenCV operations that can produce similar results to those from ICY above. 


p.s I dont have enough reputaions to post more links and references.
I would suggest to smooth the image before you apply the edge detection.
Apply bilateral filter on the image before the edge detection( cv2.biltralfilter).