Morphological Edge Detection Algorithm Based on Multi-Structure Elements of Different Directions

Edge detection is one of the important pre-processing steps in image analysis. Edges characterize boundaries and edge detection is one of the most difficult tasks in image processing hence it is a problem of fundamental importance in image processing. Edges in images are areas with strong intensity contrasts and a jump in intensity from one pixel to the next can create major variation in the picture quality. Edge detection of an image significantly reduces the amount of data and filters out useless information, while preserving the important structural properties in an image. Conventionally, mathematical morphology edge detection methods use single and symmetrical structure elements. But they are difficult to detect complex edge feature, because they are only sensitive to image edge which has the same direction of structure elements. This paper proposed a novel edge detection algorithm based on multi-structure elements morphology of eight different directions. The eight different edge detection results are obtained by using morphological gradient algorithm respectively, and final edge results are obtained by using synthetic weighted method. The experimental results showed that the proposed algorithm is more efficient for edge detection than conventional mathematical morphological edge detection algorithms and differential edge detection operators.