Binary morphological coding of grayscale images

One approach to image coding is to segment the original gray-scale image and then encode the boundaries and the interiors of the segments to represent the image. The authors propose a novel image coding method based on this approach, with an important difference. With the proposed coding technique, an alternative representation of the image segments is used; instead of segment boundaries, morphological skeletons are used to represent the segments. The skeleton is a thin-lined caricature of the segment that summarizes its shape and conveys information about its size, orientation, and connectivity. A binary image morphological skeletonization procedure is used to create skeletons of the image segments. In this way, the gray-scale image is represented for coding purposes by the skeletons and the intensities of the segments. Preliminary estimates show a data rate of 0.12 bits per pixel can be obtained with this coding technique.<>