Get angle from x,y of a linear base of an object

Question

How to align/parallelise the green arrow (pic 2) with the linear base. After applying the basic PCA analysis of OpenCV I was quite happy with the result but I would like to know how to manipulate the center point location and angle to match with the base. In the pictures provided you can see the green line is off by a few degrees while I would like it to be either on or just parallel to the "base".

Source image:

What I currently get:

#include <iostream>
#include <opencv2/opencv.hpp>

using namespace std;
using namespace cv;

// Function declarations
void drawAxis(Mat&, Point, Point, Scalar, const float);
double getOrientation(const vector<Point> &, Mat&);

void drawAxis(Mat& img, Point p, Point q, Scalar colour, const float scale = 0.2)
{
    double angle;
    double hypotenuse;
    angle = atan2( (double) p.y - q.y, (double) p.x - q.x ); // angle in radians
    hypotenuse = sqrt( (double) (p.y - q.y) * (p.y - q.y) + (p.x - q.x) * (p.x - q.x));
        double degrees = angle * 180 / CV_PI; // convert radians to degrees (0-180 range)
        cout << "Degrees: " << abs(degrees - 180) << endl; // angle in 0-360 degrees range

    // Here we lengthen the arrow by a factor of scale
    q.x = (int) (p.x - scale * hypotenuse * cos(angle));
    q.y = (int) (p.y - scale * hypotenuse * sin(angle));
    line(img, p, q, colour, 1, CV_AA);
    // create the arrow hooks
    p.x = (int) (q.x + 9 * cos(angle + CV_PI / 4));
    p.y = (int) (q.y + 9 * sin(angle + CV_PI / 4));
    line(img, p, q, colour, 1, CV_AA);
    p.x = (int) (q.x + 9 * cos(angle - CV_PI / 4));
    p.y = (int) (q.y + 9 * sin(angle - CV_PI / 4));
    line(img, p, q, colour, 1, CV_AA);

}

double getOrientation(const vector<Point> &pts, Mat &img)
{
    //Construct a buffer used by the pca analysis
    int sz = static_cast<int>(pts.size());
    Mat data_pts = Mat(sz, 2, CV_64FC1);
    for (int i = 0; i < data_pts.rows; ++i)
    {
        data_pts.at<double>(i, 0) = pts[i].x;
        data_pts.at<double>(i, 1) = pts[i].y;
    }
    //Perform PCA analysis
    PCA pca_analysis(data_pts, Mat(), CV_PCA_DATA_AS_ROW);
    //Store the center of the object
    Point cntr = Point(static_cast<int>(pca_analysis.mean.at<double>(0, 0)),
                       static_cast<int>(pca_analysis.mean.at<double>(0, 1)));
    //Store the eigenvalues and eigenvectors
    vector<Point2d> eigen_vecs(2);
    vector<double> eigen_val(2);
    for (int i = 0; i < 2; ++i)
    {
        eigen_vecs[i] = Point2d(pca_analysis.eigenvectors.at<double>(i, 0),
                                pca_analysis.eigenvectors.at<double>(i, 1));
        eigen_val[i] = pca_analysis.eigenvalues.at<double>(0, i);
    }
    // Draw the principal components

    circle(img, cntr, 3, Scalar(255, 0, 255), 2);
    Point p1 = cntr + 0.02 * Point(static_cast<int>(eigen_vecs[0].x * eigen_val[0]), static_cast<int>(eigen_vecs[0].y * eigen_val[0]));
    Point p2 = cntr - 0.02 * Point(static_cast<int>(eigen_vecs[1].x * eigen_val[1]), static_cast<int>(eigen_vecs[1].y * eigen_val[1]));
    drawAxis(img, cntr, p1, Scalar(0, 255, 0), 1);
    drawAxis(img, cntr, p2, Scalar(255, 255, 0), 5);

    double angle = atan2(eigen_vecs[0].y, eigen_vecs[0].x); // orientation in radians
    return angle;
}

int main(int, char** argv)
{
    // Load image
    Mat src = imread("/path/image.jpg");
    // Check if image is loaded successfully
    if(!src.data || src.empty())
    {
        cout << "Problem loading image!!!" << endl;
        return EXIT_FAILURE;
    }

    imshow("src", src);
    // Convert image to grayscale
    Mat gray;
    cvtColor(src, gray, COLOR_BGR2GRAY);
    // Convert image to binary
    Mat bw;
    threshold(gray, bw, 50, 255, CV_THRESH_BINARY | CV_THRESH_OTSU);
    // Find all the contours in the thresholded image
    vector<Vec4i> hierarchy;
    vector<vector<Point> > contours;
    findContours(bw, contours, hierarchy, CV_RETR_LIST, CV_CHAIN_APPROX_NONE);
    for (size_t i = 0; i < contours.size(); ++i)
    {
        // Calculate the area of each contour
        double area = contourArea(contours[i]);
        // Ignore contours that are too small or too large
        //if (area < 1e2 || 1e5 < area) continue;
        if (area > 1e6) continue;
        cout << "Area: " << area << endl;

        // Draw each contour only for visualisation purposes
        drawContours(src, contours, static_cast<int>(i), Scalar(0, 0, 255), 2, 8, hierarchy, 0);
        // Find the orientation of each shape
        getOrientation(contours[i], src);
    }
    imshow("output", src);
    waitKey(0);
    return 0;
}

Answer 1

I don't know nothing about opencv, but this should do.

To project a vector on a plane you have to:

Greenvector - scalarproduct(plane.Normalvector,scalarproduct(plane.Normalvector,Greenvector)/plane.Normalvector.value^2)

Assuming vectors are as common used in math, describing a direction. As I am at it, thank you, upon checking your question I've found an error within my own code.

edit:/ Are you sure the greenvector ain't on the plane, did you check it or are you assuming it from the picture?