Automatic thresholding of infected blood images using granulometry and regional extrema

This work introduces a morphological method for detecting malaria parasites in images of Giemsa stained blood slides. Generally, blood images are made up of three different kinds of cells: red, white and blood platelets. These are distinguished by their dimensions and their colour. In malarial blood the red corpuscles of vertebrates are infected by malaria parasites. The aim of our system is to detect the parasites by means of an automatic thresholding based on a morphological approach, using granulometries to evaluate the size of the red cells and the nuclei of parasites, and the regional maxima to mark the nuclei of parasites