High compression rate and error free grayscale images coding method using morphological "two steps" skeleton

This paper addresses the representation of grayscale images by means of binary mathematical morphology, a relatively new nonlinear theory for image processing, based on set theory. The new image representation described, called the "two steps" skeleton representation, is an extension of the morphological binary skeleton. This article presents the theoretical background of the morphological image representation and shows an application for grayscale images.