MACHINE VISION SYSEMS AND METHODS FOR MORPHOLOGICAL TRANSFORMATION OF AN IMAGE WITH ZERO OR OTHER UNIFORM OFFSETS

The invention provides machine vision systems for morphological transformation of a source image e.g., adapted for use with zero or uniform offsets. The systems have application, for example, in image erosion or dilation of images of varied image quality. Systems according to the invention compare each pixel in a first row (or line) of the image with a corresponding pixel in a second row of the image. In each comparison, the system identifies the pixel intensity of selected rank. Where the system effects a dilation-type transformation, for example, the comparison seeks a maximum of the compared pixels. For an erosion-type transformation, the comparison seeks a minimum. The pixel intensity value of selected rank (e.g., minimum or maximum) determined from each comparison is retained and, in turn, compared with the intensity values of the corresponding pixels in every other row in the image. These maximum/minimum values are, in turn, compared with the each other and, more particularly, with the values of selected rank (e.g., maximum or minimum) for the neighboring columns. The intensity value of selected rank from among each set of compared values is retained in the transformation image, e.g., in the row and column position corresponding to the center of neighborhood.