Morphological skeleton and shape decomposition

A novel morphological shape decomposition algorithm which is based on the skeleton transform is presented. The input to the algorithm is the morphological skeleton of a binary shape. Using simple morphological operations, this algorithm decomposes a binary shape into shape segments that correspond to maximal skeleton-induced subregions of the original shape containing no necks. A skeleton-induced decomposition scheme for 2-D shapes is defined. Many extensions to the basic algorithm are also possible. The shape segments produced can be used to construct structural shape descriptions or for other shape analysis purposes.<<ETX>>