Skeletonizing volume objects part II: From surface to curve skeleton

Abstract

Volume imaging techniques are becoming common and skeletonization has begun to prove valuable for shape analysis also in 3D. In this paper, a method to reduce solid volume objects to their 3D curve skeletons is presented. The method consists of two major steps. The first step is aimed at the computation of the surface skeleton, and is an improvement of a previous method. In the second step, the surface skeleton is further reduced to the 3D curve skeleton. Our skeletonization method preserves topology; no disconnections, holes or tunnels are created. It also preserves the general geometry of the object, especially in the case of elongated objects. Resulting skeletons for a number of synthetic and real images are presented.