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Trace Boundaries of Objects in Images - MATLAB

The document describes two MATLAB functions, bwtraceboundary and bwboundaries, that can be used to find the boundaries of objects in binary images. Bwtraceboundary traces the boundary of a single object starting from a specified pixel location, while bwboundaries returns boundaries for all objects in an image. An example demonstrates using these functions to trace the boundaries of coin objects in a sample image.

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208 views

Trace Boundaries of Objects in Images - MATLAB

The document describes two MATLAB functions, bwtraceboundary and bwboundaries, that can be used to find the boundaries of objects in binary images. Bwtraceboundary traces the boundary of a single object starting from a specified pixel location, while bwboundaries returns boundaries for all objects in an image. An example demonstrates using these functions to trace the boundaries of coin objects in a sample image.

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AlcibiadesV
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Trace Boundaries of Objects in Images

The toolbox includes two functions you can use to find the boundaries of objects in a binary image:
bwtraceboundary
bwboundaries
The bwtraceboundary function returns the row and column coordinates of all the pixels on the border of an
object in an image. You must specify the location of a border pixel on the object as the starting point for the
trace.
The bwboundaries function returns the row and column coordinates of border pixels of all the objects in an
image.
For both functions, the nonzero pixels in the binary image belong to an object, and pixels with the value 0 (zero)
constitute the background.
The following example uses bwtraceboundary to trace the border of an object in a binary image. Then, using
bwboundaries, the example traces the borders of all the objects in the image:
Read image and display it.
I = imread('coins.png');
imshow(I)
1.
Convert the image to a binary image. bwtraceboundary and bwboundaries only work with binary images.
BW = im2bw(I);
imshow(BW)
2.
Determine the row and column coordinates of a pixel on the border of the object you want to trace. 3.
Trace Boundaries of Objects in Images - MATLAB & Simulink http://www.mathworks.com/help/images/trace-boundaries-of-objects-i...
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bwboundary uses this point as the starting location for the boundary tracing.
dim = size(BW)
col = round(dim(2)/2)-90;
row = min(find(BW(:,col)))
Call bwtraceboundary to trace the boundary from the specified point. As required arguments, you must
specify a binary image, the row and column coordinates of the starting point, and the direction of the first
step. The example specifies north ('N'). For information about this parameter, see Select First Step and
Direction for Tracing.
boundary = bwtraceboundary(BW,[row, col],'N');
4.
Display the original grayscale image and use the coordinates returned by bwtraceboundary to plot the
border on the image.
imshow(I)
hold on;
plot(boundary(:,2),boundary(:,1),'g','LineWidth',3);
5.
To trace the boundaries of all the coins in the image, use the bwboundaries function. By default,
bwboundaries finds the boundaries of all objects in an image, including objects inside other objects. In the
binary image used in this example, some of the coins contain black areas that bwboundaries interprets as
separate objects. To ensure that bwboundaries only traces the coins, use imfill to fill the area inside
each coin.
BW_filled = imfill(BW,'holes');
boundaries = bwboundaries(BW_filled);
bwboundaries returns a cell array, where each cell contains the row/column coordinates for an object in the
image.
6.
Plot the borders of all the coins on the original grayscale image using the coordinates returned by
bwboundaries.
for k=1:10
b = boundaries{k};
plot(b(:,2),b(:,1),'g','LineWidth',3);
end
7.
Trace Boundaries of Objects in Images - MATLAB & Simulink http://www.mathworks.com/help/images/trace-boundaries-of-objects-i...
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Select First Step and Direction for Tracing
For certain objects, you must take care when selecting the border pixel you choose as the starting point and the
direction you choose for the first step parameter (north, south, etc.).
For example, if an object contains a hole and you select a pixel on a thin part of the object as the starting pixel,
you can trace the outside border of the object or the inside border of the hole, depending on the direction you
choose for the first step. For filled objects, the direction you select for the first step parameter is not as
important.
To illustrate, this figure shows the pixels traced when the starting pixel is on a thin part of the object and the first
step is set to north and south. The connectivity is set to 8 (the default).
Impact of First Step and Direction Parameters on Boundary Tracing
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