MATHEMATICS OF

BINARY
MORPHOLOGY
and
APPLICATIONS IN
Vision

In general; what is
Morphology?
The science of form and structure
the science of form, that of the outer form, inner structure, and
development of living organisms and their parts
about changing/counting regions/shapes

Among other applications it is used to pre- or post-process

images
via filtering, thinning and pruning

Smooth region edges

create line drawing of face

Force shapes onto region edges

curve into a square

Count regions (granules)

number of black regions

Estimate size of regions

area calculations

What is Morphology in computer

vision ?
1. Morphology generally concerned with shape and
properties of objects.
2. Used for segmentation and feature extraction.
3. Segmentation = used for cleaning binary objects.

4. Two basic operations

1. erosion (opening)
2. dilation (closing)

Morphological operations and

algebras
1. Different definitions in the textbooks
2. Different implementations in the image processing
programs.
3. The original definition, based on set theory, is made by J.
Serra in 1982.
4. Defined for binary images - binary operations (boolean,
set-theoretical)
5. Can be used on grayscale images - multiple-valued logic
operations

Morphological operations on a
PC
Various but slightly different
implementations in
Scion
Paint Shop Pro
Adope Photoshop
Corel Photopaint
mm

Try them, it is a lot of fun

Mathematical
Morphology
- Set-theoretic representation
for binary
shapes

Binary Morphology
Morphological operators are used to prepare
binary (thresholded) images for object
segmentation/recognition
Binary images often suffer from noise (specifically salt-andpepper noise)
Binary regions also suffer from noise (isolated black pixels
in a white region). Can also have cracks, picket fence
occlusions, etc.

Dilation and erosion are two binary

morphological operations that can assist with
these problems.

Goals of morphological
operations:
1. Simplifies image data
2. Preserves essential shape characteristics
3. Eliminates noise
4. Permits the underlying shape to be identified
and optimally reconstructed from their distorted,
noisy forms

What is the mathematical

morphology ?
1. An approach for processing digital image based on its
shape
2. A mathematical tool for investigating geometric
structure in image
The language of morphology is set theory.
Mathematical morphology is extension to set theory.

Importance of Shape in Processing

and Analysis
Shape is a prime carrier of information in
machine vision
For instance, the following directly correlate
with shape:
identification of objects
object features
assembly defects

Binary
Morphology

Shape Operators
Shapes are usually combined by means of :

Set Union (overlapping objects):

X1

X2

X1 X2

Set Difference based on Set intersection

(occluded objects):

X2 \ X1 X1c X2

Set
difference

Set intersection
X1

X2

X1

X2

Morphological Operations based on

combining base operations
The primary morphological operations
are dilation and erosion
More complicated morphological
operators can be designed by means of
combining erosions and dilations
We will use
combinations of union,
complement,
intersection, erosion,
dilation, translation...

Let us illustrate them and explain

how to combine

Libraries of Structuring
Elements
Application
specific
structuring
elements
created by
the user

Notation
x
-2 -1 0 1

-2
-1
0
1
2

B
y

X
No necessarily compact
nor filled

A special set :
the structuring
element

Origin at center in this

case, but not necessarily
centered nor symmetric

3*3 structuring
element, see next slide how it works

Dilation

Explanation of Dilation
Dilation : x = (x1,x2) such that if we center B on them,
then the so translated B intersects X.

difference
dilation

Notation for Dilation

Dilation : x = (x1,x2) such that if we center B on them,
then the so translated B intersects X.
How to formulate this definition ?
1) Literal translation

Mathematical definition of dilation

2) Better : from Minkowskis sum of sets

B is ingeneral not the same as B

Another Mathematical definition of

dilation uses the concept of
Minkowskis sum

The Concept
of Minkowski Sum

Minkowskis Sum
Definition of Minkowskis sum of sets S and B :

Minkowskis
Sum

Another View at Dilation

Dilation :

Dilation

Dilation

Comparison of Dilation and

Minkowski sum
Dilation :
Bx =
x and
b are
points
Minkowski sum

It is like dilation
but we are not
going around ,
we go only to
top and to right

Dilation and Minkowski Set

Dilation and Minkowski Set are

denoted by + or by
No unified notation

Dilation is not the Minkowskis sum

Minkowskis
Sum

Dilation is not the Minkowskis sum

Dilation

b b bb
B is not the same as B

Dilation

Dilation with other structuring elements

Dilation with other structuring elements

Dilation vs SE
Erosion shrinks
Dilation expands binary regions
Can be used to fill in gaps or cracks in binary images

structuring Element ( SE )
If the point at the origin of the structuring
element is set in the underlying image, then
all the points that are set in the SE are also
set in the image
Basically, its like ORing the SE into the
image

Dilation fills holes

Fills in holes.
Smoothes object boundaries.
Adds an extra outer ring of
pixels onto object boundary,
ie, object becomes slightly
larger.

Main Applications of Dilation

Dilation example

Possible problems with

Morphological Operators
Erosion and dilation clean image but leave
objects either smaller or larger than their
original size.
Opening and closing perform same
functions as erosion and dilation but object
size remains the same.

More Erode and Dilate

Examples
Input Image
Dilated
Eroded

Made in Paint Shop Pro

Dilation explained pixed by pixel

Denotes origin of B i.e.
its (0,0)

Denotes origin of A i.e.

its (0,0)
B

A B

Dilation explained by shape of A

Shape of A
repeated
without shift

A B

Shape of A
repeated
with shift

Properties of Dilation
objects are light (white in binary)
Dilation does the following:

1. fills in valleys between spiky regions

2. increases geometrical area of object
3. sets background pixels adjacent to object's
contour to object's value
4. smoothes small negative grey level regions

Structuring Element for Dilation

Length 6
Length 5

Image

StructuringElement

Result

Structuring Element for Dilation

Image

StructuringElement

Result

Structuring Element for Dilation

Image

StructuringElement

Single point in Image replaced with

this in the Result

Result

Structuring Element for Dilation

Image

StructuringElement

Result

Definition of Dilation:
Mathematically
Dilation is the operation that combines two sets
using vector addition of set elements.
Let A and B are subsets in 2-D space. A: image
undergoing analysis, B: Structuring element,
denotes dilation
A B {c Z 2 c a b for some a A, b B}

Dilation versus translation

Let A be a Subset of Z 2 and x Z.2
The translation of A by x is defined as:

x is a vector

( A) x {c Z 2 c a x, for some a A}

The dilation of A by B can be computed as the

union of translation of A by the elements of B
A B ( A)b ( B ) a
bB

a A

Dilation versus translation, illustrated

Element (0,0)

Shift vector
(0,0)

Shift vector
(0,1)

A( 0, 0 )

A( 0,1)

A B

Dilation using Union Formula

A B ( A)b ( B ) a
bB

a A

Center of
the circle

( B) x

A B

This
circle
will
create
one point

This circle will

create no point

Example of Dilation with

various sizes of structuring
elements
Structuring
Element

Pablo Picasso, Pass with the Cape, 1960

Mathematical Properties of
Dilation
Commutative

A B B A

Associative

A ( B C ) ( A B) C

Extensivity

if 0 B, A A B

Illustrated in
next slide

Dilation is increasing

A B implies A D B D

Illustration of Extensitivity of Dilation

if 0 B, A A B
A

A B

Replaced with

Here 0 does not

belong to B and
A is not included
in A B

More Properties of Dilation

Translation Invariance

Linearity

( A) x B ( A B ) x
( A B ) C ( A C )( B C )

Containment

( A B) C ( A C ) ( B C )

Decomposition of structuring element

A ( B C ) ( A B) ( A C )

Dilation
1. The dilation operator takes two pieces of data as input
1. A binary image, which is to be dilated
2. A structuring element (or kernel), which determines the behavior
of the morphological operation
2. Suppose that X is the set of Euclidean coordinates of the input image,
and K is the set of coordinates of the structuring element
3. Let Kx denote the translation of K so that its origin is at x.
4. The DILATION of X by K is simply the set of all points x such that the
intersection of Kx with X is non-empty

Dilation
Example: Suppose that the structuring element is
a 3x3 square with the origin at its center
K=

X=

{ (-1,-1), (0,-1), (1,-1),

(-1,0), (0,0), (1,0),
( 1,1), (0,1), (1,1) }

Dilation
Example: Suppose that the structuring element is
a 3x3 square with the origin at its center

Note: Foreground pixels are represented by a color

and background pixels are empty

Dilation
Structuring element

Input

output

Dilation

output

Dilation

output

Dilation

Dilation

Erosion

Example of Erosion
Erosion : x = (x1,x2) such that if we center B on them,
then the so translated B is contained in X.

difference

erosion

Notation for Erosion

Erosion : x = (x1,x2) such that if we center B on them,
then the so translated B is contained in X.
How to formulate this definition ?
1) Literal translation

Erosion
2) Better : from Minkowskis substraction of sets

Minkowskis substraction

BINARY MORPHOLOGY
Notation
for Erosion

Minkowskis substraction of sets

Erosion

Erosion with other structuring elements

Erosion with other structuring elements

Did not belong to X

When the new SE is included in old SE then

a larger area is created

Common structuring elements shapes

= origin
x
y
disk

circle

segments 1 pixel wide

Note that here :

points

Problem in BINARY MORPHOLOGY

using Minkowski Sum

First we
calculate the
operation in
parentheses
to obtain a
diamond

PROBLEM BINARY MORPHOLOGY

next we
calculate the
external
operation to
obtain a
hexagon

ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF EROSION

Problem :
<d/2

d/2
d

Where d is a
diameter

Implementation of dilation:
very low computational cost

0
1 (or >0)

Logical or

Implementation of erosion:
very low computational cost

0
1

Logical and

More on
Erosion

Erosion
1. (Minkowski subtraction)
2. The contraction of a binary region (aka,
region shrinking)
3. Use a structuring element on binary image
data to produce a new binary image
4. Structuring elements (SE) are simply
patterns that are matched in the image
5. It is useful to explain operation of erosion
and dilation in different ways.

Typical Uses of Erosion

1. Removes isolated noisy
pixels.
2. Smoothes object
boundary.
3. Removes the outer layer
of object pixels, ie,
object becomes slightly
smaller.

Properties of Erosion:
Erosion removes spiky edges

objects are light (white in binary)

decreases geometrical area of object
sets contour pixels of object to background value
smoothes small positive grey level regions

Erosion Example

Erosion explained pixel by pixel

AB

Structuring Element in Erosion

Example

Image

StructuringElement

Result

How It Works?
During erosion, a pixel is turned on at the
image pixel under the structuring element
origin only when the pixels of the structuring
element match the pixels in the image
Both ON and OFF pixels should match.
This example erodes regions horizontally
from the right.

Structuring Element in Erosion

Example

Image

StructuringElement

Result

Structuring Element in Erosion

Example

Image

StructuringElement

Result

Structuring Element in Erosion

Example

Image

StructuringElement

Result

Structuring Element in Erosion

Example

Image

StructuringElement

Result

Structuring Element in Erosion

Example

Image

StructuringElement

Result

Structuring Element in Erosion

Example

Image

StructuringElement

Result

Mathematical Definition of Erosion

1. Erosion is the morphological dual to
dilation.
2. It combines two sets using the vector
subtraction of set elements.
3. Let AB denotes the erosion of A by B
AB {x Z 2

for every b B, exist an a A s.t. x a b}

{x Z 2 x b A for every b B )

Erosion in terms of other operations:

Erosion can also be defined in terms of translation

AB {x Z 2 ( B ) x A)
In terms of intersection

AB ( A) b
bB

Observe that
vector here is
negative

Reminder - this was A

Erosion illustrated in terms of intersection and

negative translation
Observe negative
translation

Because of negative
shift the origin is here

A1( 0,1)

A( 0, 0 )

AB

Erosion formula and intuitive example

AB {x Z 2 ( B) x A)
( B) x
A

Center
here will
not add a
point to
the Result

AB

Center of
B is here
and adds a
point

Example of Erosions
with various sizes of
structuring elements

Structuri
ng
Element

Pablo Picasso, Pass with the Cape, 1960

Properties of Erosion
Erosion is not commutative!

Extensivity

Erosion is dereasing

AB BA

if 0 B, AB A

A C implies AB CB, B C implies AB AC

Chain rule

A( B1 ... Bk ) (...( AB1 )...Bk )

The chain rule is as sharp operator in Cube Calculus used in logic

synthesis. There are more similarities of these algebras

Properties of Erosion
Ax B ( AB ) x , ABx ( AB) x

Translation Invariance

Linearity

( A B )C ( AC ) ( BC )

Containment

( A B)C ( AC ) ( BC )

Decomposition of structuring element

A( B C ) ( AB ) ( AC )

Duality Relationship between erosion and dilation

Dilation and Erosion transformation bear a
marked similarity, in that what one does to
image foreground and the other does for the
image background.
, the reflection of B,
B Z is defined as
2

B {x for some b B, x b}

Erosion and Dilation Duality

Similar but not identical to De
Morgan rule in Boolean Algebra

Observe negative
value which is
image
Theorem mirror
reflection of B

( AB ) A B
c

Erosion as Dual of Dilation

Erosion is the dual of dilation
i.e. eroding foreground pixels is
equivalent to dilating the background
pixels.

Duality Relationship between

erosion and dilation

Easily visualized on binary image

Template created with known origin

1
1

*
1

Template stepped over entire image

similar to correlation

Dilation
if origin == 1 -> template unioned
resultant image is large than original

Erosion
only if whole template matches image
origin = 1, result is smaller than original

Another look at
duality

One more view at Erosion with

examples
1. To compute the erosion of a binary input image by the
structuring element
2. For each foreground pixel superimpose the structuring element
3. If for every pixel in the structuring element, the corresponding
pixel in the image underneath is a foreground pixel, then the
input pixel is left as it is
4. Otherwise, if any of the corresponding pixels in the image are
background, however, the input pixel is set to background value

Erosion

Erosion example with dilation and

negation
We want to
calculate this

We dilate
with negation

Erosion
.. And we
negate the
result

We obtain the
same thing as
from definition

Morphological Operations in terms of

more general neighborhoods

This exists in
Matlab

Erode and Dilate in terms of more

general neighborhoods

Yet another loook at Duality Relationship

between erosion and dilation

Edge detection or
Binary Contour

Boundary Extraction

Erode and Binary Contour in Matlab

Erosion can be
used to find
contour
Dilation can be
also used for it think how?

Edge detection
Dilate - original

This subtraction is set

theoretical

Now you need to

invert the image
There are more
methods for edge
detection

Opening & Closing

1. Opening and Closing are two important operators
from mathematical morphology
2. They are both derived from the fundamental
operations of erosion and dilation
3. They are normally applied to binary images

Close = Dilate next Erode

Open = Erode next Dilate
Original
image

Open and Close

eroded

dilated

dilated
eroded

Close

Open

OPENING

OPENING
Opening :
also

OPENING
Supresses :
small islands
ithsmus (narrow unions)
narrow caps

difference

Opening with other structuring elements

Open
An erosion followed by a dilation
It serves to eliminate noise
Does not significantly change an objects
size

Comparison of Opening and

Erosion
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Opening is defined as an erosion followed by a dilation using the

same structuring element
The basic effect of an opening is similar to erosion
Tends to remove some of the foreground pixels from the edges of
regions of foreground pixels
Less destructive than erosion
The exact operation is determined by a structuring element.

Opening Example
What combination of
erosion and dilation
gives:
cleaned binary image
object is the same size
as in original

Original

Opening Example Cont

Erode original image.

Dilate eroded image.
Smooths object boundaries, eliminates noise (isolated pixels) and
maintains object size.

Original

Erode

Dilate

One more example of Opening

1. Erosion can be used to eliminate small clumps of
undesirable foreground pixels, e.g. salt noise
2. However, it affects all regions of foreground pixels
indiscriminately
3. Opening gets around this by performing both an erosion
and a dilation on the image

CLOSING

EXAMPLE OF CLOSING
Closing :
also

Supresses :
small lakes (holes)
channels (narrow separations)
narrow bays

BINARY MORPHOLOGY

Closing previous image with other

structuring elements

With bigger
rectangle like
this

With smaller
cross like this

Application : shape smoothing and noise filtering

Papilary lines
recognition

Application :
segmentation of microstructures (Matlab Help)

disk radius 6
original
negated
threshold
closing
opening
and with
threshold

PROPERTIES IN BINARY MORPHOLOGY

Properties
all of them are increasing :

opening and closing are idempotent :

EXTENSIVE VERSUS ANTI-EXTENSIVE

OPERATIONS
dilation and closing are extensive operations
erosion and opening are anti-extensive operations:

DUALITIES OF MORPHOLOGICAL OPERATORS

duality of erosion-dilation, opening-closing,...

Decomposition of structuring elements

operations with big structuring elements can be done

by a succession of operations with small s.es

HIT-OR-MISS
Hit-or-miss :

Bi-phase structuring element

Hit part
(white)

Miss part
(black)

HIT or MISS FOR ISOLATED POINTS

Looks for pixel configurations :

background
foreground
doesnt matter

ISOLATED POINTS
isolated points at
4 connectivity

More
examples on
Closing

Close
Dilation followed by erosion
Serves to close up cracks in objects and
holes due to pepper noise
Does not significantly change object size

More examples of Closing

What combination of
erosion and dilation
gives:
cleaned binary image
object is the same size
as in original

Original

More examples of Closing cont

Dilate original image.

Erode dilated image.
Smooths object boundaries, eliminates noise (holes) and maintains
object size.

Original

Dilate

Erode

Closing as dual to Opening

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Closing, like its dual operator opening, is derived from the

fundamental operations of erosion and dilation.
Normally applied to binary images
Tends to enlarge the boundaries of foreground regions
Less destructive of the original boundary shape
The exact operation is determined by a structuring element.

Closing is opening in revers

Closing is opening performed in reverse.
It is defined simply as a dilation followed by an erosion using
the same

One more example of Closing

Mathematical Definitions of Opening

and Closing
Opening and closing are iteratively applied dilation and erosion
Opening

A B ( AB ) B

Closing

A B ( A B)B

Relation of Opening and Closing

A B

{ x B x A}

Difference is
only in
corners

Bx

A B ( AB) B

AB

Bx

Opening and Closing are idempotent

Their reapplication has not further effects to
the previously transformed result
A B ( A B) B
A B ( A B) B

Properties of Opening and Closing

Translation invariance

A ( B) x A B
Antiextensivity of opening

Extensivity of closing

Duality

A ( B) x A B
A B A

A A B

( A B) A B
c

Example of Openings
with various sizes of
structuring elements

Structuring
Element

Pablo Picasso, Pass with the Cape, 1960

Example of Closings
with various sizes of
Exampleelements
of Closing
structuring

Structuring
Element

Thinning
and Thickening

Thinning and Thickening

Thinning :

Thickenning :
Depending on the structuring elements (actually, series
of them), very different results can be achieved :
Prunning
Skeletons
Zone of influence
Convex hull
...

Prunning at 4 connectivity
Prunning at 4 connectivity : remove end points by a
sequence of thinnings

This point is
removed with dark
green neighbors

1 iteration =

IDEMPOTENCE shown as a result of thinning

1st iteration

2nd iteration

3rd iteration: idempotence

Other thinning operations

background
foreground

doesnt
matter

USING EROSION TO FIND CONTOURS

Contours of binary regions :
difference

erosion

Contour found with

larger mask

CONTOURS with different connectivity patterns

8-connectivity
contour

4-connectivity

4-connectivity
contour

8-connectivity

Important for perimeter computation.

Use of thickening: Convex hull

ii. Convex hull : union of thickenings, each up to idempotence

Original
shaper

Thickening
with first
mask

Union of
four
thickenings

Example of using convex hull

iii. Skeleton :
Maximal disk : disk centered at x, Dx, such that
Dx X and no other Dy contains it .
Skeleton : union of centers of maximal disks.

PROBLEMS with skeletons

Problems :
Instability : infinitessimal variations in the border of X
cause large deviations of the skeleton
not necessarily connex even though X connex

good approximations provided by thinning with

special series of structuring elements

Example of iterative thinning with 8 masks

1st
iteration

Example of iterative thinning with 8 masks

result of
1st iteration

2nd iteration reaches

idempotence

Thinning
with thickening

Some sort of
region
clustering

20 iterations
of thinning
color white

40 iterations
Thickening
color white

Skeletonization
for OCR
BINARY MORPHOLOGY
Application : skeletonization for OCR by graph matching
skeletonization

vectorization

skeletonization
Application : skeletonization for OCR by graph matching

Hit-or-Miss

and 3 rotations

Calculation of Geodesic zones of

influence (GZI)
1. X set of n connex components {Xi}, i=1..n .
2. The zone of influence of Xi , Z(Xi) , is the set of points closer
to some point of Xi than to a point of any other component.
3. Also, Voronoi partition.
4. Dual to skeleton.

Calculating and using Geodesic Zones of Influence

GZI

thr

erosion
7x7

and

opening
5x5

Calculating and using Geodesic Zones of Influence (cont)

thr

dist

erosion
7x7

Skeleton by Maximal Balls

Example Morphological Processing of

Handwritten Digits

thresholding
thinning

opening

smoothing

PROGRAMMING
OF MORPHOLOGICAL OPERATIONS

USING LISP

USING LISP

USING LISP

USING LISP

USING LISP

Morphological
Filtering

Morphological Filtering
Main idea of Morphological Filtering:
Examine the geometrical structure of an image by matching it
with small patterns called structuring elements at various
locations
By varying the size and shape of the matching patterns, we can
extract useful information about the shape of the different parts
of the image and their interrelations.
Combine set-theoretical and morphological operations:

Example 1: Morphological
filtering
Noisy image will break down OCR systems

Clean original image

Noisy image

Morphological filtering (MF)

By applying
MF, we
increase the
OCR
accuracy!

Restored image

Rank Filter Median

Input

1 operation

2 operations

Postprocessing

Opening followed by closing.

Removes noise and smoothes boundaries.

Postprocessing

Opening followed by closing.

Removes noise and smoothes boundaries.

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

Grey Level
Morphology

erosion
dilation

Change of histogram as a result of dilation

Removal of Border Objects

Marker is the border itself

Summary on Morphological
Approaches
Mathematical morphology is an approach for processing
digital image based on its shape
The language of morphology is set theory
The basic morphological operations are erosion and
dilation
Morphological filtering can be developed to extract useful
shape information
Methods can be extended to more values and more
dimensions
Nice mathematics can be formulated - non-linear

Conclusion

Segmentation separates an image into regions.

Use of histograms for brightness based segmentation.

Peak corresponds to object.
Height of peak corresponds to size of object.

If global image histogram is multimodal, local image region histogram

may be bimodal.

Local thresholds can give better segmentation.

Conclusion

Postprocessing uses morphological operators.

Same as convolution only use Boolean operators instead of multiply

and add.
Erosion clears noise, makes smaller.
Dilation fills in holes, makes larger.

Postprocessing
Opening and closing to clean binary images.
Repeated erosion with special rule produces skeleton.

Problems 1 - 6
1. Write LISP or C++ program for dilation of binary
images
2. Modify it to do erosions (few types)
3. Modify it to perform shift and exor operation and
shift and min operation
4. Generalize to multi-valued algebra
5. Create a comprehensive theory of multi-valued
morphological algebra and its algorithms
(publishable).

6. Write a program for inspection of Printed Circuit Boards using morphological

algebra.

Problem 7.
Electric Outlet Extraction has been done
using a combination of Canny Edge
Detection and Hough Transforms
Write a LISP program that will use only basic
morphological methods for this application.

Image Processing for electric outlet, how?

Currently there are many, many ways to

approach this problem

Segmentation
Edge Detection
DPC compression
FFT
IFFT
DFT
Thinning
Growing
Haar Transform
Hex Rotate

Alpha filtering
DPC compression
Perimeter
Fractal
Gaussian Filter
Band Pass Filter
Homomorphic Filtering
Contrast
Sharper
Least Square Restoration
Warping
Dilation

Image Processing, how?

Create morphological
equivalents of other image
processing methods.
New, publishable, use outlet
problem as example to illustrate

Problem 8. Openings and

Closings as examples.
The solution here is to follow up one operation with the
other.
An opening is defined as an erosion operation followed
by dilation using the same structuring element.
Similarly, a closing is dilation followed by erosion.
Define and implement other combined operations.

Problems 9 - 12.
9. Generalize binary morphological algebra from 2 dimensional
to 3 dimensional images. What are the applications.
10. Write software for 9.
11. Generalize your generalized multi-valued morphological
algebra to 3 or more dimensions, theoretically, find properties
and theorems like those from this lecture.
12. Write software for 11.

Problem 13
Mathematical morphology uses the concept of
structuring elements to analyze image features.
A structuring element is a set of pixels in some
arrangement that can extract shape information from
an image.
Typical structuring elements include rectangles,
lines, and circles.
Think about other structuring elements and their
applications.

Morphological Operations:
Matlab

BWMORPH Perform morphological operations on binary image.

BW2 = BWMORPH(BW1,OPERATION) applies a specific morphological

operation to the binary image BW1.
BW2 = BWMORPH(BW1,OPERATION,N) applies the operation N times. N
can be Inf, in which case the operation is repeated until the image no longer
changes.
OPERATION is a string that can have one of these values:
'close'

Perform binary closure (dilation followed by erosion)

'dilate' Perform dilation using the structuring elementones(3)

'erode'
'fill'
'open'

Perform erosion using the structuring elementones(3)

Fill isolated interior pixels (0's surrounded by1's)

Perform binary opening (erosion followed bydilation)

'skel' With N = Inf, remove pixels on the boundariesof objects without

allowing objects to break apart

demos/demo9morph/

Sources

D.A. Forsyth, University of New Mexico,

Qigong Zheng, Language and Media Processing Lab
Center for Automation Research
University of Maryland College Park
October 31, 2000
John Miller
Matt Roach
J. W. V. Miller and K. D. Whitehead
The University of Michigan-Dearborn
Spencer Lustor
Light Works Inc. C. Rssl, L. Kobbelt, H.-P. Seidel, Max-Planck Institute for, Computer
Science, Saarbrcken, Germany
LBA-PC4
Howard Schultz

Shreekanth Mandayam
ECE Department
Rowan University

D.A. Forsyth, University of New Mexico

More recent Sources

Howie Choset
G.D. Hager,
Z. Dodds,
Dinesh Mocha