How does the regionprops calculate the area or the eccentricity of an object?

Hi,

I have been reading a lot about image segmentation lately and know that some algorithms are based on the region and some are based on the boundary of a pixel.

I am wondering now how the regionprops function in MATLAB calculates the properties of an object and if there is any proper reference paper on the function to learn how the alogrithm of the regionprops work?

With regionprops () circles can be found by calculating the eccentricity or the roundness of an object. Another method is the Hough Transform to detect lines and circles.

What are the advantages for regionprops in comparison to the Hough Transform?

[David Walwark]

I am looking for this answer too, mostly to confirm and translate the method found here:

http://www.physics.emory.edu/faculty/weeks/idl/kit/feature.pro