Abstract:This paper presents a new method to evaluate edge detectors objectively and quantitatively. This method is capable of showing correctly the performance of detecting the contour of images, as well as of detecting the fine details of images. The effects of noises on edge detectors can be accurately reported by partitioning the whole test image into three areas having different characteristics and then, at different areas, using different parameters to match the different performance of edge detectors. At the same time, the whole performance of edge detectors is divided into two parts: the edge-extracting ability and the noise-attenuating ability. So, the edge detectors, having different characteristics, can be evaluated comprehensively, accurately and objectively, and be applied to different cases.