Q10Digital Image Processing
Question
2 marks
Define erosion and dilation in morphological processing.
Answer
Erosion mathematically shrinks image objects by violently stripping boundary pixels, while Dilation aggressively expands objects by mathematically adding boundary pixels using a structural element.
These are the absolute core operators of Mathematical Morphology. Dilation probes the image with a Structuring Element (SE); if the SE touches the object, the center is marked 1, physically expanding the geometry. Erosion requires the SE to be entirely contained inside the object; otherwise, the pixel is violently annihilated to 0, shrinking the geometry.