Reconstructable one-pass parallel thinning

Abstract

This paper describes a reconstructible thinning process which is based on a one-pass parallel thinning and the morphological skeleton transformation. It reduces a binary digital pattern into a unit-width, connected skeleton to which labels are assigned enabling perfect reconstruction of the original pattern. The process uses thinning templates to iteratively remove boundary pixels and structuring templates of the morphological skeleton transformation to retain critical feature pixels for reconstruction. The thinning templates together with the extracted feature pixels ensure skeletal connectivity, unit width, and reconstructability. These essential properties are guaranteed regardless of the chosen structuring templates used in the morphological skeleton transformation. The thinning process has been analyzed and results are presented. A number of implementation issues such as the choice of structuring templates and noise filtering have also been addressed.