A method for processing an image of a patch panel includes: a) receiving an initial image; b) determining multiple ports of the patch panel are aligned in a desired orientation in the initial image; c) processing the initial image to identify edge lines perpendicular to the desired orientation; d) processing the edge lines to identify a port hypothesis that includes an estimated port gap between the multiple ports along the desired orientation and an estimated port size for the multiple ports along the desired orientation; e) processing the port hypothesis to determine an estimated port quantity for the multiple ports; and f) processing the port hypothesis to identify an estimation error between expected and detected edge line positions in relation to a reference axis perpendicular to the edge lines. An apparatus associated therewith includes an input/output and pre-processing modules and detection, hypothesis, estimating, and scoring processors.