Abstract:To meet the need of automatic image features extraction with high precision in visual inspection, a complete approach to automatic identification and sub-pixel center location for similar-ellipse feature is proposed. In the method, the feature area is identified automatically based on the edge attribute, and the sub-pixel center location is accomplished with the leastsquare algorithm. It shows that the method is valid, practical, and has high precision by experiment. Meanwhile this method can meet the need of instrumentation of visual inspection because of easy realization and without man-machine interaction.