A new edge detection algorithm and its applications in picture processing

Edge detection is an important problem in the recognition of objects in images. This paper presents a new edge detector which is better than the gradient-type edge detectors used so far. When the edge detector is appied to an image, a picture is obtained consisting of edge points. Several general operations can be performed on this edge picture such as thinning of edges, tracing edge segments, joining edges, and so on. Algoithms are given that perform those operations. To show the power of the edge detector, an experiment is described in which rib boundaries are extracted in chest X-ray photographs.