Flexible architectures for morphological image processing and analysis

This paper presents an architecture for the efficient and high-speed realization of morphological filters. Since morphological filtering can be described in terms of erosion and dilation, two basic building units performing these functions are required for the realization of any morphological filter. Dual architectures for erosion and dilation are proposed and their operations are described. Their structure, similar to the systolic array architecture as used in the implementation of linear digital filters, is highly modular and suitable for efficient very-large-scale integration (VLSI) implementation. A decomposition scheme is proposed to facilitate the implementation of two-dimensional morphological filters based on one-dimensional structuring elements constructed using the dual architectures. The proposed architectures, which also allow the processing of gray-scale images, are appropriate for applications where speed, size, and cost are of critical significance.