Linear watershed algorithm for 1D real signals

Abstract

The watershed transformation is widely used, a powerful tool for the segmentation of 2D and 3D images. In this paper we propose a fast linear one sweep algorithm generating all possible extreme weighted connected components in 1D real value signal. We also show how such a post-order list of connected components can be converted into a component tree in linear time. Furthermore, we demonstrate how some features of the connected components can be computed again in linear time.