3D edge detection based on Boolean functions and local operators

Abstract

Edge detection is one of the most commonly used operations in image processing and computer vision areas. Edges correspond to the boundaries between regions in an image, which are useful for object segmentation and recognition tasks. This work presents a novel method for 3D edge detection based on Boolean functions and local operators, which is an extension of the 2D edge detector introduced by Vemis et al. [Signal Processing 45(2), 161–172 (1995)] The proposed method is composed of two main steps. An adaptive binarization process is initially applied to blocks of the image and the resulting binary map is processed with a set of Boolean functions to identify edge points within the blocks. A global threshold, calculated to estimate image intensity variation, is then used to reduce false edges in the image blocks. The proposed method is compared to other 3D gradient filters: Canny, Monga–Deriche, Zucker–Hummel and Sobel operators. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed technique when applied to several 3D synthetic and real data sets.