A generalization of morphological filters using multiple structuring elements

A new class of morphological filters is proposed for smoothing an image contaminated with noise. A multiple model that includes the combination of linear and nonlinear operations is used in the design of the new filter. The performance of the averaging version of this new filter is similar to that of the alpha-trimmed mean filter. The structure-preserving properties of this new filter depend on the values assigned to the coefficients in the filter. The idempotent property is obtained when a closing-min and opening-max version of the filter is used. The root structure of the output signal is also investigated.<>