pgmmorphconv(1) - phpMan

Pgmmorphconv User Manual(0) Pgmmorphconv User Manual(0)

NAME
pgmmorphconv - perform morphological convolutions: dilation, erosion

SYNOPSIS
pgmmorphconv [
-erode |
-dilate |
-open |
-close |
-gradient ] templatefile [pgmfile]

Minimum unique abbreviation of option is acceptable. You may use double hyphens instead
of single hyphen to denote options. You may use white space in place of the equals sign
to separate an option name from its value.

DESCRIPTION
This program is part of Netpbm(1).

pgmmorphconv performs morphological convolutions on a PGM image: dilation and erosion.

pgmmorphconv performs a "topological" convolution. For each pixel of the input, pgmmor-
phconv generates an output pixel in the same position. To determine the intensity of the
output pixel, pgmmorphconv lays the template image over the input image such that the mid-
dle pixel of the template is over the input pixel in question. pgmmorphconv looks at the
input pixels underneath each white pixel in the template. For a dilation, the maximum
intensity of all those pixels is the intensity of the output pixel. For an erosion, it is
the minimum.

Thus, the dilation effect is that bright areas of the input get bigger and dark areas
smaller. The erosion effect is the opposite. The simplest template image would be one
with a white pixel in the middle and the rest black. This would produce an output image
identical to the input. Another simple template image is a fully white square. This
causes bright or dark areas to expand in all directions. A template image that is white
on the left side and black on the right would smear the image to the right.

The template file named by templatefile contains the template image as a PBM image. It
must have an odd number of rows and an odd number of columns, so there is a definite mid-
dle pixel. It must contain at least one white pixel.

This is similar to the continuous convolution done by pnmconvol, except that with pnmcon-
vol the output intensity is a weighted average of nearby input pixels instead of a minimum
or maximum.

This convolution changes the three Minkowski integrals in a predefined way, and can be
used to filter an image to enhance certain features, to ease their automatic recognition.

The options -erode and -dilate obviously produce an erosion or dilation, respectively.

The -open option causes pgmmorphconv to perform first an erode and then a dilate opera-
tion. The -close option causes a dilate first and then an erode. If you specify none of
these options, it is the same as -dilate.

With -gradient, pgmmorphconv produces an image which is the difference between the eroded
image and the dilated image. -gradient was new in Netpbm 10.70 (March 2015).