Diameter is a critical metric during producing circular workpieces, but it is always challenging to measure accurately due to the existence of noise. The intelligent Hough transform with Jaya (IHTJ) is developed to solve this issue recently. However, it suffers from some disadvantages including unsatisfactory accuracy and convergence rate caused by the problem of trapping into local optimization in the case of inaccurate priori knowledge. In this paper, an IHTJ of multipopulation cooperation (IHTJMC) is proposed to overcome these disadvantages. Firstly, we analyse the problem of IHTJ in the diameter measurement. Secondly, a ring structure of the multipopulation cooperation is designed. In this structure, the whole population is divided into several subpopulations which evolve independently all the time. This can ensure a few best and worst solutions guide the evolution of the whole population at the same time. Then, we propose a migration strategy to finish the cooperation among the different subpopulations, which selects a few individuals from each subpopulation randomly, and exchange them with each other. This strategy can make the different subpopulations share the information among the entire population and improve the global search ability. Finally, three experiments are introduced to test the effectiveness of the IHTJMC. The experimental results demonstrate that the IHTJMC can restrain the problem of falling into local optimization significantly. Compared with the existing methods, it has superior accuracy and robustness for the diameter measurement of a circular workpiece which is heated to red state.