Top-hat by reconstruction operators based multi-scale multi-structuring element method for multiple linear feature detection with simple post-processing

Abstract

To efficiently extract all the possible linear features in image, a multi-scale multi-structuring element top-hat by reconstruction operator based algorithm with simple post-processing is proposed in this paper. Multi-scale top-hat by reconstruction operator using multi-scale structuring elements is discussed, firstly. Also, through importing multi-structuring elements with linear shapes at different directions, multi-scale multi-structuring element top-hat by reconstruction operator for linear feature extraction is shown. By using the multi-scales of multi-structuring elements, the method of extracting all the possible linear feature regions in an image is proposed. After extracting the linear feature regions, the final detected linear features, which are expressed as lines with different shapes and lengths, are obtained through image binarisation and refinement. Experimental results on different types of images show that, the proposed algorithm is efficient for linear feature detection and could be widely used in different applications related to multiple linear feature detection.