Abstract
In a recent paper (Escribano et al. in Discrete Geometry for Computer Imagery 2008. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 4992, pp. 81–92, 2008) we have introduced a notion of continuity in digital spaces which extends the usual notion of digital continuity. Our approach, which uses multivalued functions, provides a better framework to define topological notions, like retractions, in a far more realistic way than by using just single-valued digitally continuous functions.
In this work we develop properties of this family of continuous functions, now concentrating on morphological operations and thinning algorithms. We show that our notion of continuity provides a suitable framework for the basic operations in mathematical morphology: erosion, dilation, closing, and opening. On the other hand, concerning thinning algorithms, we give conditions under which the existence of a retraction F:X⟶X∖D guarantees that D is deletable. The converse is not true, in general, although it is in certain particular important cases which are at the basis of many thinning algorithms.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Boxer, L.: Digitally continuous functions. Pattern Recognit. Lett. 15, 833–839 (1994)
Boxer, L.: A classical construction for the digital fundamental group. J. Math. Imaging Vis. 10, 51–62 (1999)
Boxer, L.: Properties of digital homotopy. J. Math. Imaging Vis. 22, 19–26 (2005)
Boxer, L.: Homotopy properties of sphere-like digital images. J. Math. Imaging Vis. 24, 167–175 (2006)
Chen, L.: Gradually varied surface and its optimal uniform approximation. Proc. SPIE 2182, 300–307 (1994)
Chen, L.: Discrete Surfaces and Manifolds: A Theory of Digital-Discrete Geometry and Topology. Scientific and Practical Computing, Rockville (2004)
Escribano, C., Giraldo, A., Sastre, M.A.: Digitally continuous multivalued functions. In: Coeurjolly, D., Sivignon, I., Tougne, L., Dupont, F. (eds.) Discrete Geometry for Computer Imagery 2008. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 4992, pp. 81–92. Springer, Berlin (2008)
Escribano, C., Giraldo, A., Sastre, M.A.: Thinning algorithms as multivalued \(\mathcal{N} \)-retractions. In: Brlek, S., Reutenauer, C., Provençal, X. (eds.) Discrete Geometry for Computer Imagery 2009. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 5810, pp. 275–287. Springer, Berlin (2009)
Giraldo, A., Gross, A., Latecki, L.J.: Digitizations preserving shape. Pattern Recognit. 32, 365–376 (1999)
Giraldo, A., Sanjurjo, J.M.R.: Density and finiteness. A discrete approach to shape. Topol. Appl. 76, 61–77 (1997)
Han, X., Xu, C., Prince, J.: A topology preserving level set method for geometric deformable models. IEEE Trans. Pattern Anal. Mach. Intell. 25(6), 755–768 (2003)
Khalimsky, E.: Topological structures in computer science. J. Appl. Math. Simul. 1, 25–40 (1987)
Klette, R., Rosenfeld, A.: Digital Geometry. Elsevier, Amsterdam (2004)
Kong, T.Y.: A digital fundamental group. Comput. Graph. 13, 159–166 (1989)
Kong, T.Y., Rosenfeld, A.: Digital topology: introduction and survey. Comput. Vis. Graph. Image Process. 48, 357–393 (1989)
Kong, T.Y., Rosenfeld, A. (eds.): Topological Algorithms for Digital Image Processing. Elsevier, Amsterdam (1996)
Kovalevsky, V.: A new concept for digital geometry. In: Ying-Lie, O., et al. (eds.) Shape in Picture. Proc. of the NATO Advanced Research Workshop, Driebergen, The Netherlands, 1992. Computer and Systems Sciences, vol. 126. Springer, Berlin (1994)
Ronse, C.: A topological characterization of thinning. Theor. Comput. Sci. 43, 31–41 (1988)
Rosenfeld, A.: Continuous functions in digital pictures. Pattern Recognit. Lett. 4, 177–184 (1986)
Rosenfeld, A.: Digital topology. Am. Math. Mon. 86(8), 621–630 (1979)
Ségonne, F.: Active contours under topology control-genus preserving level sets. Int. J. Comput. Vis. 79(2), 107–117 (2008)
Soille, P.: Morphological operators. In: Jähne, B., et al. (eds.) Signal Processing and Pattern Recognition. Handbook of Computer Vision and Applications, vol. 2, pp. 627–682. Academic Press, San Diego (1999)
Tsaur, R., Smyth, M.B.: “Continuous” multifunctions in discrete spaces with applications to fixed point theory. In: Bertrand, G., et al. (eds.) Digital and Image Geometry: Advanced Lectures. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 2243, pp. 75–88. Springer, New York (2001)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Escribano, C., Giraldo, A. & Sastre, M.A. Digitally Continuous Multivalued Functions, Morphological Operations and Thinning Algorithms. J Math Imaging Vis 42, 76–91 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10851-011-0277-z
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10851-011-0277-z