looking for a generalised Hough Transform function or a least a function to locate circles

I am looking for a generalised Hough Transform function or a least a function to locate circles (position of center and radius) in a image. There is the standard Hough line search function (ImageLines), which only implements the basic Hough transform to detect lines.

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please take a look at this link mathematica.stackexchange.com/questions/7429/… –  s.s.o Apr 24 '13 at 8:11
or this? –  cormullion Apr 24 '13 at 8:21
@s.s.o: A hough transform can find circles even if they're not connected components (and circles detected e.g. using EdgeDetect are often not connected). But I think MMA has no built in generalized or circle hough transform. It would be relatively straightforward (but slow) to simulate it by convolving the image with circles with different radii. –  nikie Apr 24 '13 at 10:15
@nikie yes your are right. I was trying to help the or part of the question asking 'a least a function to locate circles'. An alternative could be using java libraries available on the internet e.g. users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/msn/book/new_demo/houghCircles/… –  s.s.o Apr 24 '13 at 10:23
Thanks for the hints. The answers point to good solutions for the circle search as long as the circles are more or less complete. My question was also oriented to person who eventually may already have implemented a performant generalised Hough Transform. Any trial that I made was indeed awfully slow. –  Lorenz Mueller Apr 26 '13 at 14:19