The Connected Components

Algorithm

Also the hole counting algorithm & Shape

detection

By Mikhail Koryak
Introduction: Connected Components

„ Connected Components
algorithm is used to extract
“regions” from an image.
‰ A region in an image is a
set of pixels with similar
intensity values which are Original Image
neighbors to each other.
„ Once the regions are
extracted they are labeled
with different
numbers/colors.

Regions extracted with CC

Connected Components: Algorithm

„ 4 passes over the image are required for

processing.
‰ 1st pass: label all pixels that are connected to
their neighbors.
‰ 2nd pass: with new labels in place, re-label all
pixels that have neighbors with a different
label.
‰ 3rd pass: run the union find algorithm on the
labels to connect multiple neighboring labels
into one label
‰ 4th pass: create a structure array containing all
the detected components
Connected Components: 1st pass

„ Label all pixels connected to their neighbors.

‰ Output of this operation will look like this:

‰ Different labels are different gray levels
Connected Components: 2nd pass

„ We now must connect labels which are

neighboring each other
‰ We do not do it directly on the image, instead we
create a table and modify that
‰ We initialize a 1D array where the length equals
the number of labels, and where the value of each
element is its index.
‰ As we pass over the image, and we find that label
J neighbors label K, we set label_array(J) = K.
Connected Components: 3rd pass

„ Now in order to combine all the neighboring

labels in the image into one, we run the union
find algorithm on the label_array.
‰ Because of the transitivity of the label_array we know
that if array(i) = array(j) and array(j) = array(k) then
array(i) = array(k)
Connected Components: 4th pass

„ We can now use the label_array in conjunction

with the image to find any pixel’s label using
this formula:
‰ New_pixel_value = label_array(pixel)
‰ After all pixels are reassigned, we can easily collect
different components into a structure array.

Æ
Shape detection using a structural element

„ Goal:
‰ Given an image with square and rectangular
blocks, to detect which blocks are square and
which are rectangular
„ Constraints:
‰ A structural element must be used for detection,
not distances
‰ Detection must be translation and rotation
invariant
Shape detection using a structural element

„ What is a structural element?

‰ It’s a mask which you apply to an image.
‰ Theoretically you should be able to apply a square
mask to a square and if its fully covered then you
know it is a square.
„ What is rotation / translation invariance?
‰ Translation = object can be anywhere on the
screen
‰ Rotation = object can be rotated in any direction,
or not at all
Shape detection using a structural element:
Algorithm
„ I chose to use a circular mask because it is
rotation invariant in itself.
„ First the center of the object is found by
taking the average of all the object’s pixels
‰ We can find the pixels from the CC algorithm
„ A circle mask is “grown” inside of the object
until it “touches” a background pixel
„ A ratio of the area covered by the mask
versus the area not covered by the mask is
taken
Shape detection using a structural element:
Algorithm continued

„ We know what the ratio is if the object

is a square
‰ (3.1415 * r^2) / (4 * r^2) = 0.7853
‰ Anything drastically higher than this ratio
must be a rectangle
Shape detection using a structural element:
Conclusion

„ After squares and rectangles have been

detected they can be displayed in different
colors.

Æ
The “magical” hole counting algorithm

„ Back in the 70s in factories some people

needed to count the number of holes in some
parts, if the number was wrong the part was
defected
„ The restrictions were:
‰ All images are binary (white background, black
objects)
‰ The algorithm must be fast
‰ Not more then 2 bytes of ram must be used to
count objects in any size image.
The “magical” hole counting algorithm

„ Some crazy pot smoking programmers from the 70s

got together and came up with this:
‰ Holes will be counted in 1 pass over the image, only 4 pixels
at a time have to be in memory
‰ 2 types of corners are defined:
‰ The image is scanned from top to bottom, left to right for
these masks, and their totals kelp in memory
‰ Number of object = (number of external corners – number of
internal corners) / 4
‰ Feel free to figure out why this works
The end