Improved skeleton computation of extreme vertices encoded volume

Abstract

Many skeletonisation algorithms for discrete volumes have been proposed. The one given here can be fully implemented in terms of regularized boolean differences, unions and intersections of volumes, without relying on large look-up tables. Despite its simplicity, it is able to compute connected subvoxel surface skeletons that allow volumes to be reconstructed with the desired predefined error. It is based on the application of directional erosions, while retaining those regions that introduce disconnections. This strategy is proved to be specially well-suited for processing extreme vertices encoded volumes, as the intensive use of Boolean operations of the method can be substantially speeded up using the extreme vertices model.