Breadth-first search and its application to image processing problems

Author

Silvela, Jaime ; Portillo, Javier

Author_Institution

Nortel Networks, Madrid, Spain

Volume

10

Issue

8

fYear

2001

fDate

8/1/2001 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

1194

Lastpage

1199

Abstract

This paper explores the use of breadth-first graph traversal for the processing of digital images. It presents efficient algorithms for eroding, dilating, skeletonizing, and distance-transforming regions. These algorithms work by traversing regions in a breadth-first manner using a queue for storage of unprocessed pixels. They use memory efficiently-pixels are removed from the queue as soon as their processing has been completed-and they process only pixels in the region (and their neighbors), rather than requiring a complete scan of the image. The image is still represented as a pixel matrix in memory; the graph is just a convenient framework for thinking about the algorithms

Keywords

graph theory; image representation; image thinning; mathematical morphology; set theory; breadth-first graph traversal; breadth-first search; digital image processing; distance-transforming regions; efficient algorithms; flood filling; image dilating; image is still represented; image region; image representation; image skeletonization; memory; morphological processing; object labelling; pixel matrix representation; region eroding; unprocessed pixels queue; Computer vision; Digital images; Electronic mail; Floods; Image processing; Image reconstruction; Labeling; Pixel;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Image Processing, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1057-7149

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/83.935035

Filename

935035