3D Thinning Algorithms

Assessment of tracheal stenoses, infra-renal aortic aneurysms, and colorectal polyps [7] Quantitative analysis of tubular tree structures [8] 3D Thinning Algorithms [9] Thinning algorithms based on sufficient conditions for topology preservation [10] Short description: The thinning is an iterative layer by layer erosion until only the "skeletons" of the objects are left. We proposed various 3D thinning algorithms capable of extracting medial lines or medial surfaces as well. Description: Skeleton is a region-based shape descriptor which summarizes the general form of objects/shapes. An illustrative definition of the skeleton is given using the prairie-fire analogy: the object boundary is set on fire and the skeleton is formed by the loci where the fire fronts meet and extinguish each other. Thinning is a frequently used method for making an approximation to the skeleton in a topology-preserving way. It is based on a digital simulation of the fire front propagation: the border points of a binary object that satisfy certain topological and geometric constraints are deleted in iteration steps. The entire process is then repeated until only the "skeleton" is left. There are two types of 3D thinning algorithms: the curve-thinning type is used to extract medial lines or centerlines, while a surface-thinning type produces medial surfaces. We proposed various 3D thinning algorithms capable of extracting medial lines or medial surfaces as well.