Generating skeletons and centerlines from the medial axis transform

Author

Niblack, C. Wayne ; Capson, David W. ; Gibbons, Phillip B.

Author_Institution

IBM Res., San Jose, CA, USA

Volume

i

fYear

1990

fDate

16-21 Jun 1990

Firstpage

881

Abstract

An algorithm for generating connected skeletons of objects in binary images is described. Three main properties of the algorithm are that: (1) it is noniterative, taking a fixed number of passes through the image to produce the skeleton regardless of the width of the objects; (2) it is based on a distance transform that uses a good approximation to the Euclidean distance, giving skeletons that are well centered and robust with respect to rotation; and (3) the skeletons it produces are connected. In addition, the skeletons are thin and allow the objects to be nearly reconstructed. The algorithm can also be run in a mode to produce centerlines, a connected approximation to the skeleton that is less sensitive to border noise and that is useful in image analysis applications

Keywords

computational geometry; computerised picture processing; transforms; binary images; centerlines; computerised picture processing; distance transform; medial axis transform; skeletons; Approximation algorithms; Clocks; Contracts; Euclidean distance; Image reconstruction; Image sequence analysis; Mesh generation; Noise generators; Robustness; Skeleton;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Pattern Recognition, 1990. Proceedings., 10th International Conference on

Conference_Location

Atlantic City, NJ

Print_ISBN

0-8186-2062-5

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ICPR.1990.118234

Filename

118234