A FULLY PARALLEL 3D THINNING ALGORITHM AND ITS APPLICATIONS

A thinning algorithm is a connectivity preserving process which is app lied to erode an object layer by layer until only a ''skeleton'' is le ft. Generally, it is difficult to prove that a 3D parallel thinning al gorithm preserves connectivity. Sufficient conditions which can simpli fy such proofs were proposed recently in CVGIP: Image Understanding (5 9, No. 3 (1994), 328-339). One of the purposes of this paper is to pro pose a connectivity preserving fully parallel 3D thinning algorithm. T he other purpose is to show how to use the sufficient conditions to pr ove a 3D parallel thinning algorithm to be connectivity preserving. By this demonstration, a new generation of 3D parallel thinning algorith ms can be designed and proved to preserve connectivity relatively easi ly. (C) 1996 Academic Press, Inc.