Thesis (PDF) - Signal & Image Processing Lab

Chapter 7
Conclusions and further research
7.1 Conclusions
In this work, we present a general framework for producing new morphological oper-
ators that are compatible to given tree representations. This framework was shown
to be useful by presenting an example of a new tree representation, the Extrema Wa-
tershed Tree, with the set of morphological operators based on this tree, and giving
a number of applications examples. Those examples were pre-processing for OCR,
noise filtering and initial step for dust and scratch removal. EWT-based filtering per-
forms well on tasks suitable for classical morphological filtering. When self-duality is
required, EWT-based filtering achieves better filtering results as compared to other
filtering techniques, including classical morphological filtering.
Moreover, a study of the trench problem was performed, and a number of possible
solutions were presented, along with finding a potential in using those trenches for
segmentation purposes.
7.2 Further research topics
A number of further research directions can be stated on the basis of this work:
• The developed general framework opens a gate for many possible sets of new
morphological operators. Each set is based on a specific tree representation.
Therefore, finding and exploring additional tree representations can bring new
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