Image edges from area morphology

This paper introduces an edge detection process based on area morphology. Area open-close and area close-open operators are used to generate scaled image representations for feature extraction. The edges are defined by the boundaries of the scaled objects in the area-filtered images. From the area open-close and close-open operators, thin closed contours suitable for image segmentation are produced. The edge maps allow exact specification of the minimum area for the extracted regions and are Euclidean invariant and causal through scale space. Results are given that demonstrate the effectiveness of the area operator-based edge detection. In contrast to traditional edge detectors, edge detection via area morphology provides well-localized boundaries and does not require thresholding.