A THINNING ALGORITHM BY CONTOUR GENERATION
Date
1987-12-01
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Abstract
A fast serial algorithm for thinning binary images is presented. The
boundaries of 2-D objects are chain coded and an iterative procedure
is set up where the boundary points in the image are visited one after
another in every iteration. A boundary point is deleted if it is not a
break point or an end point. A section of the new boundary is created and
contains all of the break points, end points and points exposed to
the background after the previous boundary has been eroded. As the new
boundary is generated it is checked for break points. At the end of an
iteration, the chain code for the new boundary is in place for processing
in the next iteration. The iteration terminates when all the points in
the new contour are either break points or end points. The last contour
generated becomes the skeleton. For thick objects, the method is 19
times faster than parallel algorithms and 6 times faster than conventional
contour tracing thinning algorithms. This method is more efficient than
other serial algorithms because it is faster to generate a new contour
than to remove the current one and to trace a new one in the next
iteration.
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Computer Science