A Continuous Skeletonization Method Based on Level Sets

Abstract

A robust and efficient method in 2D and 3D for the calculation of skeletons for arbitrary objects is presented. The method is based on the calculation of the distance function with respect to the object boundary. This is combined, in a post processing step, with a new indicator to identify the skeleton, which coincides with the singularity set of the distance map. The indicator is defined as a suitable function of certain local momenta of this distance map and allows a robust and accurate computation of the distance from the skeleton set. This distance is then extended, again via the level set method, onto the whole space. Several applications in 2D and 3D are presented.