An efficient watershed algorithm for preprocessed binary image

Abstract

Over-segmentation of a grayscale image is a typical problem in existing watershed algorithms. To overcome this problem, preprocessing is mainly applied to the grayscale image before performing the watershed transformation to generate a gradient or binary image. In this paper, a novel watershed algorithm based on the concept of connected-component labeling and chain code is proposed, which generates a final label map in just four scans of a preprocessed binary image. The low memory consumption, low complexity, and simple data structure of the algorithm make it highly suitable for hardware implementation. Evaluation results showed that the proposed algorithm decreases the average running time by more than 39% without loss of accuracy.