ABSTRACT

Other than edge detection, the main processing performed on purely binary images can be grouped into a broader category called morphological operators. ey process objects in the input image based on characteristics of its shape, which are encoded in the structuring element. Usually, each morphological operator would work on a 3 × 3 neighborhood in which it applies the laws of the operator under consideration. It is then shied over the image, and at each pixel of the image, its elements are compared with the set of the underlying pixels. If the two sets of elements match the condition dened by the set operator, the pixel under the origin of the neighborhood (the center pixel) is set to a predened value (0 or 1 for binary images). Morphological operators can also be applied to gray-level images, for example, to reduce noise or to brighten the image. However, for many applications, other methods, such as a more general spatial lter, produce better results.