EC 703/EC 503:

Image Processing and

Computer Vision

By:
Rahul K Patel
ECE Department
I.I.I.T, Surat
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Morphological Image Processing
 Introduction
■ Morphology: a branch of biology that deals with the form
and structure of animals and plants

■ Morphological image processing is used to extract image

components for representation and description of region
shape, such as boundaries, skeletons, and the convex hull

■ Morphological image processing is a set of techniques that

use shapes to analyze and modify the structure and shape
of objects in an image. It's based on the mathematical
theory of morphology, which studies the properties of
patterns and shapes.

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■ The language of mathematical morphology is set
theory. As such, morphology offers a unified and
powerful approach to numerous image processing
problems. Sets in mathematical morphology
represent objects in an image.
■ For example, the set of all white pixels in a binary
image is a complete morhological description of the
image.

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■ If is the set of pixels (2-D points) representing an object in
an image, then is simply the set of points in whose
coordinates have been replaced by (-x, -y)-- Reflection

■ If is the set of pixels representing an object in an image,

then is the set of points in whose coordinates have been
replaced by (x + z1, y + z2)-- Translation

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 Preliminaries (1)

■ Reflection

■ Translation

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Example: Reflection and Translation

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 Preliminaries (2)

■ Structure elements (SE)

Set reflection and translation are employed extensively in

morphology to formulate operations based on so-called structuring
elements (SEs): small sets or subimages used to probe an image
under study for properties of interest.

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 Examples: Structuring Elements (1)

origin

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 Examples: Structuring Elements (2)
Accommodate the
entire structuring
elements when its Origin of B visits
origin is on the every element of A
border of the
original set A
At each location of
the origin of B, if B
is completely
contained in A,
then the location is
a member of the
new set, otherwise
it is not a member
of the new set.

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 Erosion

■ In words, this equation indicates that the erosion of A by B is the set

of all points z such that B, translated by z, is contained in A. In the
following discussion, set B is assumed to be a structuring element.
Because the statement that B has to be contained in A is
equivalent to B not sharing any common elements with the
background, we can express erosion in the following equivalent
form:

Where Ac is the complement of A and Ꞡ is the empty set.

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Example
of
Erosion
(1)

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Example
of
Erosion
(2)

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Dilation

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Examples of Dilation (1)

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Examples of Dilation (2)

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 Duality
■ Erosion and dilation are duals of each other with respect to
set complementation and reflection

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 Duality
■ Erosion and dilation are duals of each other with respect to
set complementation and reflection

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 Duality
■ Erosion and dilation are duals of each other with respect to
set complementation and reflection

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 Opening and Closing
■ Opening generally smoothes the contour of an object,
breaks narrow isthmuses, and eliminates thin protrusions

■ Closing tends to smooth sections of contours but it

generates fuses narrow breaks and long thin gulfs,
eliminates small holes, and fills gaps in the contour

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Opening and Closing

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Opening

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Example: Opening

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Example: Closing

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 Duality of Opening and Closing
■ Opening and closing are duals of each other with respect to
set complementation and reflection

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 The Properties of Opening and Closing
■ Properties of Opening

■ Properties of Closing

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The Hit-or-Miss
Transformation

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 Some Basic Morphological Algorithms (1)
■ Boundary Extraction
The boundary of a set A, can be obtained by first eroding A
by B and then performing the set difference between A and
its erosion.

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Example 1

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Example 2

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 Some Basic Morphological Algorithms (2)
■ Hole Filling
A hole may be defined as a background region surrounded
by a connected border of foreground pixels.

Let A denote a set whose elements are 8-connected

boundaries, each boundary enclosing a background region
(i.e., a hole). Given a point in each hole, the objective is to
fill all the holes with 1s.

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 Some Basic Morphological Algorithms (2)
■ Hole Filling
1. Forming an array X0 of 0s (the same size as the array
containing A), except the locations in X0 corresponding to
the given point in each hole, which we set to 1.

2. Xk = (Xk-1 + B) Ac k=1,2,3,…

Stop the iteration if Xk = Xk-1

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Example

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 Some Basic Morphological Algorithms (3)
■ Extraction of Connected Components
Central to many automated image analysis applications.

Let A be a set containing one or more connected

components, and form an array X0 (of the same size as the
array containing A) whose elements are 0s, except at each
location known to correspond to a point in each connected
component in A, which is set to 1.

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 Some Basic Morphological Algorithms (3)
■ Extraction of Connected Components
Central to many automated image analysis applications.

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 Some Basic Morphological Algorithms (4)
■ Convex Hull
A set A is said to be convex if the straight line segment
joining any two points in A lies entirely within A.

The convex hull H or of an arbitrary set S is the smallest

convex set containing S.

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 Some Basic Morphological Algorithms (4)
■ Convex Hull

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 Some Basic Morphological Algorithms (5)
■ Thinning
The thinning of a set A by a structuring element B, defined

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 Some Basic Morphological Algorithms (5)
■ A more useful expression for thinning A symmetrically is
based on a sequence of structuring elements:

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Some Basic Morphological Algorithms
(6)
■ Thickening:

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Some Basic Morphological Algorithms
(6)

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 Some Basic Morphological Algorithms (7)
■ Skeletons

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Some Basic Morphological Algorithms (7)

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Some Basic Morphological Algorithms (7)

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Some Basic Morphological Algorithms (7)

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 Some Basic Morphological Algorithms (8)
■ Pruning

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Pruning:
Example

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Pruning:
Example

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Pruning:
Example

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Pruning:
Example

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Pruning:
Example

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