An Overview of Max-Tree Principles, Algorithms and Applications

Abstract

The max-tree is a mathematical morphology data structure that represents an image through the hierarchical relationship of connected components resulting from different thresholds. It was proposed in 1998 by Salembier et al., since then,many efficient algorithms to build and process it were proposed.There are also efficient algorithms to extract size, shape and contrast attributes of the max-tree nodes. These algorithms al-lowed efficient implementation of connected filters like attribute-openings and development of automatic and semi-automatic applications that compete with the state-of-the-art. This paper reviews the max-tree principles, algorithms, applications and its current trends.