Patent US 4,843,630

A method is provided for bridging between disjointed contour elements in an image by searching for an optimum bridging path between the facing ends of disjointed contour elements in the image. The method of the steps of defining a search window between each of the facing ends of the disjointed controur elements, considering in the window the different image points as nodes on a graph, determining an elementary cost associated with each path connecting each node to its neighboring nodes from amplitude and/or orientation data of the luminance function used for detecting the contours and in determining the optimum path by following, from the costs obtained, a line for which the luminance gradient of the detected points appears to be a maximum.