Image hinning

Derya Kurt
 What is Thinning?
„ It is a operation that is used to remove
selected foreground pixels from binary
images
„ It is the process of reducing an object in a
digital image to the minimum size
necessary for machine recognition of that
object
„ It’s essentially a “pre-processing” step
used in many image analysis techniques
 Use of Thinning
„ Thinning is often used in pattern recognition
techniques, which are an essential part of
artificial intelligence .
„ Thinning has been used in a wide variety of
other applications as well including:
– fingerprint classification
– medical imaging analysis
– text and handwriting recognition and analysis
– materials analysis
– robot vision
 Why is thinning so useful?
„ Speeds up any analysis of the object
„ Shape analysis can be performed more easily on
thin, line-like objects because it is easier to
determine critical features like junctions, end
points, and connection points
„ Thin line representation is believed to be close
to the way humans recognize objects
„ By reducing an object to only a skeleton,
unimportant features and image noise can be
filtered out.
 How It Works
„ It is calculated by translating the origin of the structuring
element to each possible pixel position in the image
„ If the foreground and background pixels in the
structuring element exactly match then the image pixel
underneath the origin of the structuring element is set to
background (zero). Otherwise it is left unchanged
„ The choice of structuring element determines under
what situations a foreground pixel will be set to
background
„ The operation is normally applied repeatedly until it
causes no further changes to the image
 Different Types of Thinning
Algorithms
„ Iterative thinning algorithms
– Perform pixel-by-pixel operations until a
suitable skeleton is obtained
„ Non-iterative thinning algorithms
– Use methods other sequential pixel scan of
the image (Midpoints of black spaces in the
image are determined and then joined to form
a skeleton)
 An Algorithm for Thinning
„ Consider all pixels on the boundaries of
foreground regions
„ Delete any such point that has more than one
foreground neighbour
„ Continue as long as it does not locally
disconnect (i.e. split into two) the region
containing that pixel
„ This procedure erodes away the boundaries of
foreground objects as much as possible, but
does not affect pixels at the ends of lines
Thinning of a simple binary shape
Some Examples
 References
„ Chang, K.T. “A Comparison of Thinning
Algorithms
„ Lam, Louisa “Thinning Methodologies
„ Zhang, T.Y. “A Fast and Flexible Thinning
Algorithm
Questions?