VERFAHREN ZUR AUTOMATISCHEN SPITZENERKENNUNG IM GRAUSTUFENHISTOGRAMM EINES DIGITALEN BILDES.

摘要

In many digital image processing methods, it is desirable to selectively apply digital image processing to identifiable structures in the image. For this purpose it is known to select gray level thresholds between structures based upon the location of corresponding peaks in the gray level histogram of the digital image. However, it is a problem to automatically detect the locations of peaks in the histogram and to select the gray level thresholds. The present invention provides a method for automatically detecting the peaks and selecting gray level thresholds for segmenting a digital image into distinguishable structures including the steps of detecting peaks in a gray level histogram of the digital image by applying smoothing and differencing operators to the gray level histogram to generate a peak detection function wherein positive to negative zero crossings of the peak detection function represent the start of a peak, and maxima following such a zero crossing represents the end of a peak.