MATLAB: Making a binary skeletonization less noisy – image processing

binary maskbwareaopenbwmorphimage processingskeletonization

Hi – I am trying to skeletonize a binary mask like this https://dl.dropbox.com/u/54307333/4ANDmask.bmp. But I end up with too many small branches coming off of the long segments https://dl.dropbox.com/u/54307333/4Maskthin.bmp. I want to get rid of small branches (<20 pixels) that are only connected on one end. Ones that are connected on both ends are valuable to me.
I am using bwmorph to calculate the endpoints. And using that I can exclude branches that are below a certain size, but like I said, I want to keep the ones that are connected on both ends.
I probably have to do some kind of if statement, checking the connectivity of each endpoint…? Not sure. Any ideas?
Thanks,
Nad

Best Answer

Try blurring the image before you skeletonize it.
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