Exhaustive hierarchical near neighbor operations on an image

Details Exhaustive hierarchical near neighbor operations on an image Exhaustive hierarchical near neighbor operations on an image

1990-06-08

1994-04-19

Boudreau, Leo H.

Image analysis

Histogram processing

For setting a threshold

382 37, 382 55, G06K 900

Patent

active

053053958

ABSTRACT:
Near neighbor data is produced hierarchically for each pixel of an image. Each pixel's near neighbor data indicates the presence of an approximate near neighbor pixel in each of four quadrants with respect to the pixel, and can also indicate distance and orientation to the near neighbor pixel. The near neighbor data can be produced by parallel processing units, with each processing unit producing, for a respective pixel, a near neighbor data item at every level of the hierarchy. Each near neighbor data item can indicate the presence of an approximate near neighbor in a respective region of the image. A near neighbor data item for a higher level region can be produced by selecting between near neighbor pixels indicated by near neighbor data items for subregions at the next lower level, by choosing the near neighbor pixel that is nearer. The quadrants can be asymmetric so that each pixel is not included in any of its four quadrants and so that the quadrants do not overlap. To provide accurate near neighbor data for a black pixel, the near neighbor data can be shifted to the black pixel from the adjacent pixels, each at the origin of one of its quadrants. Offsets in the near neighbor data can also be adjusted accordingly. Each processing unit can store a bit vector such that the bit vectors together indicate the paths between neighbor pixels and owner pixels, to facilitate subsequent communication between owners and neighbors. Each bit of the bit vector can indicate, for each level of the hierarchy, which of the processing unit's children is on the path at the next lower level. A path defined in this manner can be followed to shift focus from a current focus pixel to one of its near neighbors.

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