A theory of parameter-dependent connected components of gray images and segmentation

A new definition of the connected components of gray images which depends on two parameters ε and δ is introduced. The definition takes into account both the gray values of the pixels and the differences of the gray values of the neighboring pixels. An algorithm to partition an image into its (ε,δ)-components and several experimental results are given. A practical advantage of the definition is that a segmentation of an image can be done by finding its (ε,δ)-components for some appropriate values of ε, δ. Also, we may study an image globally through the interrelationships of the (ε,δ)-components rather than that of the pixels. Thus our theory provides a possible method of transition from low level computer vision to an intermediate level vision