CHAPTER-6 Morphological Image Processing & Image Segmentation

UNIT-6
Morphological Image Processing
Introduction
The word morphology commonly denotes a branch of biology that deals with the form
and structure of animals and plants. Morphology in image processing is a tool for extracting
image components that are useful in the representation and description of region shape, such
as boundaries and skeletons. Furthermore, the morphological operations can be used for
filtering, thinning and pruning. The language of the Morphology comes from the set theory,
where image objects can be represented by sets.
Some Basic Concepts form Set Theory :
 If every element of a set A is also an element of another set B, then A is said to be a
subset of B, denoted as A ⊆ B
 The union of two sets A and B, denoted by C = A∪B
 The intersection of two sets A and B, denote by D = A∩B

 Disjoint or mutually exclusive A∩B =ø

 The complement of a set A is the set of elements not contained in

 The difference of two sets A and B, denoted A - B, is defined as

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Reflection and Translation by examples:

• Need for a reference point.
• Reflection of B: = {x|x=-b, for b∈B}
• Translation of A by x=(x1,x2), denoted by (A)x is defined as:
(A)x = {c| c=a+x, for a∈A}

Dilation
Dilation is used for expanding an element A by using structuring element B. Dilation
of A by B and is defined by the following equation:

This equation is based on obtaining the reflection of B about its origin and shifting
this reflection by z. The dilation of A by B is the set of all displacements z, such that and A
overlap by at least one element. Based On this interpretation the equation of (9.2-1) can be
rewritten as:

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Dilation is typically applied to binary image, but there are versions that work on gray
scale image. The basic effect of the operator on a binary image is to gradually enlarge the
boundaries of regions of foreground pixels (i.e. white pixels, typically). Thus areas of
foreground pixels grow in size while holes within those regions become smaller.
Any pixel in the output image touched by the dot in the structuring element is set to
ON when any point of the structuring element touches a ON pixel in the original image. This
tends to close up holes in an image by expanding the ON regions. It also makes objects
larger. Note that the result depends upon both the shape of the structuring element and the
location of its origin.
Summary effects of dilation:
 Expand/enlarge objects in the image
 Fill gaps or bays of insufficient width
 Fill small holes of sufficiently small size
 Connects objects separated by a distance less than the size of the window
Erosion
Erosion is used for shrinking of element A by using element B. Erosion for Sets A
and B in Z2, is defined by the following equation:

This equation indicates that the erosion of A by B is the set of all points z such that B,
translated by z, is combined in A.

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Any pixel in the output image touched by the · in the structuring element is set to ON
when every point of the structuring element touches a ON pixel in the original image. This
tends to makes objects smaller by removing pixels.
Duality between dilation and erosion:
Dilation and erosion are duals of each other with respect to set
complementation and reflection. That is,

Opening:
An erosion followed by a dilation using the same structuring element for both
operations.

 Smooth contour
 Break narrow isthmuses
 Remove thin protrusion

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Closing:
A Dilation followed by a erosion using the same structuring element for both
operations.

 Smooth contour
 Fuse narrow breaks, and long thin gulfs.
 Remove small holes, and fill gaps.

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Hit-or-Miss Transform:
The hit-and-miss transform is a basic tool for shape detection. The hit-or-miss
transform is a general binary morphological operation that can be used to look for particular
patterns of foreground and background pixels in an image.
Concept: To detect a shape:
 Hit object
 Miss background
Let the origin of each shape be located at its center of gravity.
 If we want to find the location of a shape– X , at (larger) image, A
 Let X be enclosed by a small window, say – W.
 The local background of X with respect to W is defined as the set difference (W -
X).
 Apply erosion operator of A by X, will get us the set of locations of the origin of X,
such that X is completely contained in A.
 It may be also view geometrically as the set of all locations of the origin of X at
which X found a match (hit) in A.
 Apply erosion operator on the complement of A by the local background set (W – X).
 Notice, that the set of locations for which X exactly fits inside A is the intersection of
these two last operators above.
 If B denotes the set composed of X and it’s background B = (B1,B2) ; B1 = X ,
B2 = (W-X).
 The match (or set of matches) of B in A, denoted as

B1: Object related, B2: Background related

 The reason for using these kind of structuring element B = (B1,B2) is based on
definition two or more objects are distinct only if they are disjoint (disconnected)
sets.
 In some applications, we may interested in detecting certain patterns (combinations)
of 1’s and 0’s, not for detecting individual objects.
 In this case a background is not required and the hit-or-miss transform reduces to
simple erosion.
 This simplified pattern detection scheme is used in some of the algorithms for –
identifying characters within a text.

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The structural elements used for Hit-or-miss transforms are an extension to the ones
used with dilation, erosion etc. The structural elements can contain both foreground and
background pixels, rather than just foreground pixels, i.e. both ones and zeros. The
structuring element is superimposed over each pixel in the input image, and if an exact match
is found between the foreground and background pixels in the structuring element and the
image, the input pixel lying below the origin of the structuring element is set to the
foreground pixel value. If it does not match, the input pixel is replaced by the boundary pixel
value.
Basic Morphological Algorithms

Boundary Extraction:
The boundary of a set A is obtained by first eroding A by structuring element B and
then taking the set difference of A and it’s erosion. The resultant image after subtracting the
eroded image from the original image has the boundary of the objects extracted. The
thickness of the boundary depends on the size of the structuring element. The boundary of a
set A is obtained by first eroding A by structuring element B and then taking the set
difference of A and it’s erosion. The resultant image after subtracting the eroded image from

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the original image has the boundary of the objects extracted. The thickness of the boundary
depends on the size of the structuring element. The boundary β (A) of a set A is

Region Filling or Hole Filling:

A Hole may be defined as a background region surrounded by connected
border of foreground pixels. This algorithm is based on a set of dilations,
complementation and intersections. Let P is the point inside the boundary, and
that is filled with the value of 1.

 The process stops when Xk = Xk-1

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 The set Xk contains all the filled holes

 The result that given by union of A and Xk , is a set contains the filled set
and the boundary.

Extraction of Connected Components:

Extraction of connected components from a binary image is central to many
automated image analysis applications.
 Let A be a set containing one or more connected components and form an array X0
whose elements are 0s except at each location known to correspond to a point in each
connected component A which is set to 1.
 The objective is to start with X0 and find all the connected components.

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Convex Hull:
A is said to be convex if a straight line segment joining any two points in A lies
entirely within A.
 The convex hull H of set S is the smallest convex set containing S
 The set difference H-S is called the convex deficiency of S
The convex hull and convex deficiency useful for object description. This algorithm
iteratively applying the hit-or-miss transforms to A with the first of B element, unions it with
A, and repeated with second element of B.
Let Bi , i=1,2,3,4 represents the four structuring elements. Then we need to
implement the

Let us consider

and the procedure terminates when

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If

then the convex hull of A is defined as

Thinning:
The thinning of a set A by a structuring element B, can be defined by terms of the hit-
and-miss transform:

A more useful expression for thinning A symmetrically is based on a sequence of

structuring elements:
{B}={B1, B2, B3, …, Bn}

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Where Bi is a rotated version of Bi-1. Using this concept we define thinning by a

sequence of structuring elements:

The process is to thin by one pass with B1, then thin the result with one pass with B2,
and so on until A is thinned with one pass with Bn. The entire process is repeated until no
further changes occur. Each pass is preformed using the equation:

Thickening:
Thickening is a morphological dual of thinning and is defined as

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As in thinning, thickening can be defined as a sequential operation:

the structuring elements used for thickening have the same form as in thinning, but with all
1’s and 0’s interchanged.

Skeletons:
The skeleton of A is defined by terms of erosions and openings:

with

Where B is the structuring element and indicates k successive

erosions of A:

k times, and K is the last iterative step before A erodes to an empty set in other words:

The S(A) can be obtained as the union of skeleton subsets Sk(A). A can be also
reconstructed from subsets Sk(A) by using the equation

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CHAPTER-6 Morphological Image Processing & Image Segmentation

Where denotes k successive dilations of Sk(A) .that is:

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GRAY SCALE MORPHOLOGY

Gray Scale Images:
In gray scale images on the contrary to binary images we deal with digital image
functions of the form f(x,y) as an input image and b(x,y) as a structuring element. (x,y) are
integers from Z*Z that represent a coordinates in the image. f(x,y) and b(x,y) are functions
that assign gray level value to each distinct pair of coordinates. For example the domain of
gray values can be 0-255, whereas 0 – is black, 255- is white.

Dilation:
Equation for gray-scale dilation is

Df and Db are domains of f and b. The condition that (s-x),(t-y) need to be in the
domain of f and x,y in the domain of b, is analogous to the condition in the binary definition
of dilation, where the two sets need to overlap by at least one element.

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We will illustrate the previous equation in terms of 1-D. and we will receive an
equation for 1 variable:

The requirements the (s-x) is in the domain of f and x is in the domain of b implies
that f and b overlap by at least one element. Unlike the binary case, f, rather than the
structuring element b is shifted. Conceptually f sliding by b is really not different than b
sliding by f. The general effect of performing dilation on a gray scale image is twofold:
If all the values of the structuring elements are positive than the output image tends to
be brighter than the input. Dark details either are reduced or eliminated, depending on how
their values and shape relate to the structuring element used for dilation
Erosion:
Gray-scale erosion is defined as:

The condition that (s+x),(t+y) have to be in the domain of f, and x,y have to be in the
domain of b, is completely analogous to the condition in the binary definition of erosion,
where the structuring element has to be completely combined by the set being eroded. The
same as in erosion we illustrate with 1-D function

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• General effect of performing an erosion in grayscale images:

 If all elements of the structuring element are positive, the output image tends
to be darker than the input image.
 The effect of bright details in the input image that are smaller in area than the
structuring element is reduced, with the degree of reduction being determined
by the grayscale values surrounding by the bright detail and by shape and
amplitude values of the structuring element itself.
• Similar to binary image grayscale erosion and dilation are duals with respect to
function complementation and reflection.
Opening:
In the opening of a gray-scale image, we remove small light details, while relatively
undisturbed overall gray levels and larger bright features.

The structuring element is rolled underside the surface of f. All the peaks that are
narrow with respect to the diameter of the structuring element will be reduced in amplitude
and sharpness. The initial erosion removes the details, but it also darkens the image. The
subsequent dilation again increases the overall intensity of the image without reintroducing
the details totally removed by erosion.
Opening a G-S picture is describable as pushing object B under the scan-line graph,
while traversing the graph according the curvature of B

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Closing:
In the closing of a gray-scale image, we remove small dark details, while relatively
undisturbed overall gray levels and larger dark features

The structuring element is rolled on top of the surface of f. Peaks essentially are left
in their original form (assume that their separation at the narrowest points exceeds the
diameter of the structuring element). The initial dilation removes the dark details and
brightens the image. The subsequent erosion darkens the image without reintroducing the
details totally removed by dilation
Closing a G-S picture is describable as pushing object B on top of the scan-line graph,
while traversing the graph according the curvature of B. The peaks are usually remains in
their original form.

Applications of Gray-Scale Morphology:

Morphological smoothing
 Perform opening followed by a closing
 The net result of these two operations is to remove or attenuate both bright and
dark artifacts and noise.

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Morphological gradient
 Dilation and erosion are use to compute the morphological gradient of an image,
denoted g:

 It uses to highlights sharp gray-level transitions in the input image.

 Obtained using symmetrical structuring elements tend to depend less on edge
directionality.
Top-hat and Bottom-hat transformation:
 Combining image subtraction with opening and closing results are referred as top-hat
and bottom-hat transformations.
 The top-hat transformation of gray scale image f is defined as

 The bottom-hat transformation of gray scale image f is defined as

 The top-hat transform is used for light objects on a dark background and the bottom-
hat transform is used for the converse.
Textural segmentation:
 The objective is to find the boundary between different image regions based on
their textural content.
 Close the input image by using successively larger structuring elements.
 Then, single opening is preformed ,and finally a simple threshold that yields the
boundary between the textural regions.

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Granulometry:
 Granulometry is a field that deals principally with Determining the size distribution
of particles in an image.
 Because the particles are lighter than the background, we can use a morphological
approach to determine size distribution. To construct at the end a histogram of it.
 Based on the idea that opening operations of particular size have the most effect on
regions of the input image that contain particles of similar size.
 This type of processing is useful for describing regions with a predominant
particle-like character.

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Image Segmentation
Image segmentation divides an image into regions that are connected and have some
similarity within the region and some difference between adjacent regions. The goal is
usually to find individual objects in an image. For the most part there are fundamentally two
kinds of approaches to segmentation: discontinuity and similarity.

 Similarity may be due to pixel intensity, color or texture.

 Differences are sudden changes (discontinuities) in any of these, but especially
sudden changes in intensity along a boundary line, which is called an edge.

Detection of Discontinuities:

There are three kinds of discontinuities of intensity: points, lines and edges. The most
common way to look for discontinuities is to scan a small mask over the image. The mask
determines which kind of discontinuity to look for.

9
R  w1 z1  w2 z 2  ...  w9 z9  w z
i 1
i i

Point Detection: Whose gray value is significantly different from its background
R T
where T : a nonnegativ e threshold

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Line Detection:

 Only slightly more common than point detection is to find a one pixel wide line in an
image.

 For digital images the only three point straight lines are only horizontal, vertical, or
diagonal (+ or –45).

Preferred direction is weighted by with a larger coefficient

 The coefficients in each mask sum to zero response of constant gray level areas
 Compare values of individual masks (run all masks) or run only the mask of specified
direction

Edge Detection:

Edge is a set of connected pixels that lie on the boundary between two regions
• ’Local’ concept in contrast to ’more global’ boundary concept
• To be measured by grey-level transitions
• Ideal and blurred edges

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 First derivative can be used to detect the presence of an edge (if a point is on a ramp).
 The sign of the second derivative can be used to determine whether an edge pixel lie
on the dark or light side of an edge
 Second derivative produces two value per edge
 Zero crossing near the edge midpoint
 Non-horizontal edges – define a profile perpendicular to the edge direction

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Edges in the presense of noise

 Derivatives are sensitive to (even fairly little) noise
 Consider image smoothing prior to the use of derivatives
Edge definition again
 Edge point – whose first derivative is above a pre-specified threshold
 Edge – connected edge points
 Derivatives are computed through gradients (1st) and Laplacians (2nd)

Edge Detection Gradient Operators:

Gradient
– Vector pointing to the direction of maximum rate of change of f at coordinates (x,y)

Gx   fx 
f      f 
G y   y 

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– Magnitude: gives the quantity of the increase (some times referred to as gradient too)


f  mag (f )  Gx2  Gy2 
1
2

– Direction: perpendicular to the direction of the edge at (x,y)

 Gx 
 ( x, y )  tan 1  

G
  y

Partial derivatives computed through 2x2 or 3x3 masks. Sobel operators introduce
some smoothing and give more importance to the center point

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Laplacian
– Second-order derivative of a 2-D function

2 f 2 f
 f  2  2
2

x y
– Digital approximations by proper masks

 Complementary use for edge detection

 Cons: Laplacian is very sensible to noise; double edges
 Pros: Dark or light side of the edge; zero crossings are of better use
 Laplacian of Gaussian (LoG): preliminary smoothing to find edges through zero
crossings.
 Consider the function:

The Laplacian of h is

The Laplacian of a Gaussian sometimes is called the Mexican hat function. It also can
be computed by smoothing the image with the Gaussian smoothing mask, followed by
application of the Laplacian mask.

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Edge Linking and Boundary Detection

Local Processing:
 Two properties of edge points are useful for edge linking:
o the strength (or magnitude) of the detected edge points
o their directions (determined from gradient directions)
 This is usually done in local neighborhoods.
 Adjacent edge points with similar magnitude and direction are linked.
For example, an edge pixel with coordinates (x0,y0) in a predefined neighborhood of (x,y)
is similar to the pixel at (x,y) if
Strength of the gradient vector response f ( x, y)  ( x0 , y0 )  E, E : a nonnegativ e threshold
Gradient vector direction  ( x, y)   ( x0 , y0 )  A, A : a nonegative angle threshold
Both magnitude and angle criteria should be satisfied

Global Processing via the Hough Transform:

Hough transform: a way of finding edge points in an image that lie along a straight line.
Example: xy-plane v.s. ab-plane (parameter space)
yi  axi  b

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The Hough transform consists of finding all pairs of values of  and  which satisfy
the equations that pass through (x,y). These are accumulated in what is basically a
2-dimensional histogram. When plotted these pairs of  and  will look like a sine wave. The
process is repeated for all appropriate (x,y) locations.

Thresholding:

The range of intensity levels covered by objects of interest is different from the
background.
1 if f ( x, y )  T
g ( x, y )  
0 if f ( x, y )  T

Illumination:

Fig. a) Computer Generated Reflectance Function b) Histogram of Reflectance

Function c) Computer Generated Illumination Function d) Product of a and c e)
Histogram of Product Image.

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 Image is a product of reflectance and illuminance

 Reflection nature of objects and backaground
 Poor (nonlinear) illumination could impede the segmentation
 The final histogram is a result of convolution of the histogram of the log reflectance
and log illuminance functions
 Normalization if the illuminance function is known

Basic Global Thresholding:

Threshold midway between maximum and minimum gray levels

– Appropriate for industrial inspection applications with controllable illumination
– Automatic algorithm
• Segment with initial T into regions G1 and G2
• Compute the average gray level m1 and m2
• Compute new T=0.5(m1+m2)
• Repeat until reach an acceptably small change of T in successive iterations

Region Based Segmentation:

Edges and thresholds sometimes do not give good results for segmentation. Region-
based segmentation is based on the connectivity of similar pixels in a region.

– Each region must be uniform.

– Connectivity of the pixels within the region is very important.

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There are two main approaches to region-based segmentation: region growing and
region splitting.

Region Growing:

 Let R represent the entire image region.

 Segmentation is a process that partitions R into subregions, R1,R2,…,Rn, such that

n
(a)  Ri  R
i 1

(b) Ri is a connected region, i  1,2,..., n

(c) Ri  R j   for all i and j, i  j

(d) P( Ri )  TRUE for i  1,2,..., n

(e) P( Ri  R j )  FALSE for any adjacent regions Ri and R j

where P(Rk): a logical predicate defined over the points in set Rk

For example: P(Rk)=TRUE if all pixels in Rk have the same gray level.

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Region Splitting:

 First there is a large region (possible the entire image).

 Then a predicate (measurement) is used to determine if the region is uniform.
 If not, then the method requires that the region be split into two regions.
 Then each of these two regions is independently tested by the predicate
(measurement).
 This procedure continues until all resulting regions are uniform.
 The main problem with region splitting is determining where to split a region.
 One method to divide a region is to use a quadtree structure.
 Quadtree: a tree in which nodes have exactly four descendants.

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Segmentation by Morphological Watersheds:

 The concept of watersheds is based on visualizing an image in three dimensions: two
spatial coordinates versus gray levels.
 In such a topographic interpretation, we consider three types of points:
(a) Points belonging to a regional minimum
(b) Points at which a drop of water would fall with certainty to a single minimum
(c) Points at which water would be equally likely to fall to more than one such
minimum.
 The principal objective of segmentation algorithms based on these concepts is to find
the watershed lines.

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PREVIOUS QUESTIONS
1. With necessary figures, explain the opening and closing operations.
2. Explain the following morphological algorithms i) Boundary extraction ii) Hole
filling.
3. Explain the following morphological algorithms i) Thinning ii) Thickening
4. What is Hit-or-Miss transformation? Explain.
5. Discuss about Grey-scale morphology.
6. Write a short notes on Geometric Transformation
7. Explain about edge detection using gradient operator.
8. What is meant by edge linking? Explain edge linking using local processing
9. Explain edge linking using Hough transform.
10. Describe Watershed segmentation Algorithm
11. Discuss about region based segmentation.
12. Explain the concept of Thresholding in image segmentation and discuss its
merits and limitations.

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