Image partition using an iterative multi-resolution smoothing algorithm

An iterative algorithm for computing a family of piecewise-constant approximations of images in scale space with variable resolution is presented. The algorithm is a modification of an iterative adaptive smoothing algorithm proposed by P. Saint-Marc et al. (1991). The modification improves the behavior of the algorithm when weak edges are present in the image. Edge information computed from the image is incorporated into the adaptive smoothing approach. The added iterative step does not introduce a significant amount of computation, and the employment of only local operators makes it well suited for a parallel hardware implementation. The edges extracted must be two pixels wide and exhibit high connectivity. A morphological edge operator is presented to fulfil these requirements