OpenCV  3.3.0
Open Source Computer Vision
More Morphology Transformations

Goal

In this tutorial you will learn how to:

Theory

Note
The explanation below belongs to the book Learning OpenCV by Bradski and Kaehler.

In the previous tutorial we covered two basic Morphology operations:

Based on these two we can effectuate more sophisticated transformations to our images. Here we discuss briefly 5 operations offered by OpenCV:

Opening

For the sake of clarity, we have performed the opening operation (7x7 rectangular structuring element) on the same original image but inverted such as the object in white is now the letter.

Morphology_2_Tutorial_Theory_Opening_2.png
Left image: original image inverted, right image: resulting opening

Closing

On the inverted image, we have performed the closing operation (7x7 rectangular structuring element):

Morphology_2_Tutorial_Theory_Closing_2.png
Left image: original image inverted, right image: resulting closing

Morphological Gradient

Top Hat

Black Hat

Code

This tutorial code's is shown lines below. You can also download it from here

using namespace cv;
Mat src, dst;
int morph_elem = 0;
int morph_size = 0;
int morph_operator = 0;
int const max_operator = 4;
int const max_elem = 2;
int const max_kernel_size = 21;
const char* window_name = "Morphology Transformations Demo";
void Morphology_Operations( int, void* );
int main( int argc, char** argv )
{
String imageName("../data/baboon.jpg"); // by default
if (argc > 1)
{
imageName = argv[1];
}
src = imread(imageName, IMREAD_COLOR); // Load an image
if( src.empty() )
{ return -1; }
namedWindow( window_name, WINDOW_AUTOSIZE ); // Create window
createTrackbar("Operator:\n 0: Opening - 1: Closing \n 2: Gradient - 3: Top Hat \n 4: Black Hat", window_name, &morph_operator, max_operator, Morphology_Operations );
createTrackbar( "Element:\n 0: Rect - 1: Cross - 2: Ellipse", window_name,
&morph_elem, max_elem,
Morphology_Operations );
createTrackbar( "Kernel size:\n 2n +1", window_name,
&morph_size, max_kernel_size,
Morphology_Operations );
Morphology_Operations( 0, 0 );
waitKey(0);
return 0;
}
void Morphology_Operations( int, void* )
{
// Since MORPH_X : 2,3,4,5 and 6
int operation = morph_operator + 2;
Mat element = getStructuringElement( morph_elem, Size( 2*morph_size + 1, 2*morph_size+1 ), Point( morph_size, morph_size ) );
morphologyEx( src, dst, operation, element );
imshow( window_name, dst );
}

Explanation

  1. Let's check the general structure of the program:
    • Load an image
    • Create a window to display results of the Morphological operations
    • Create three Trackbars for the user to enter parameters:
      • The first trackbar Operator returns the kind of morphology operation to use (morph_operator).
        createTrackbar("Operator:\n 0: Opening - 1: Closing \n 2: Gradient - 3: Top Hat \n 4: Black Hat", window_name, &morph_operator, max_operator, Morphology_Operations );
      • The second trackbar Element returns morph_elem, which indicates what kind of structure our kernel is:
        createTrackbar( "Element:\n 0: Rect - 1: Cross - 2: Ellipse", window_name,
        &morph_elem, max_elem,
        Morphology_Operations );
      • The final trackbar Kernel Size returns the size of the kernel to be used (morph_size)
        createTrackbar( "Kernel size:\n 2n +1", window_name,
        &morph_size, max_kernel_size,
        Morphology_Operations );
    • Every time we move any slider, the user's function Morphology_Operations will be called to effectuate a new morphology operation and it will update the output image based on the current trackbar values.
      void Morphology_Operations( int, void* )
      {
      // Since MORPH_X : 2,3,4,5 and 6
      int operation = morph_operator + 2;
      Mat element = getStructuringElement( morph_elem, Size( 2*morph_size + 1, 2*morph_size+1 ), Point( morph_size, morph_size ) );
      morphologyEx( src, dst, operation, element );
      imshow( window_name, dst );
      }
      We can observe that the key function to perform the morphology transformations is cv::morphologyEx . In this example we use four arguments (leaving the rest as defaults):
      • src : Source (input) image
      • dst: Output image
      • operation: The kind of morphology transformation to be performed. Note that we have 5 alternatives:

        • Opening: MORPH_OPEN : 2
        • Closing: MORPH_CLOSE: 3
        • Gradient: MORPH_GRADIENT: 4
        • Top Hat: MORPH_TOPHAT: 5
        • Black Hat: MORPH_BLACKHAT: 6

        As you can see the values range from <2-6>, that is why we add (+2) to the values entered by the Trackbar:

        int operation = morph_operator + 2;
      • element: The kernel to be used. We use the function cv::getStructuringElement to define our own structure.

Results