DECOMPOSITION OF GRAY SCALE MORPHOLOGICAL STRUCTURING ELEMENTS.

Binary morphology has recently been successfully extended to gray scale morphology. However, implementation difficulties arise when an image is operated on using a large size gray-scale structuring element. To solve this problem, the decomposition of certain gray-scale morphological structuring elements is presented. Hence, gray-scale morphological processing only requires recursive operations with small structuring elements which permits real-time image processing using small window hardware. A nonincreasing symmetrical nonlinear structuring element can be segmented into a combination of multiple structuring components. This nonlinear structuring element can be convex, concave, or a combination of both. A convex structuring element is decomposed into sequential dilations of segmented linear structuring components. A concave structuring element is decomposed into a selection of a maximum of the results of dilating with each segmented linear structuring component modified with a flat interior region.