Comparison of operators in detecting and/or extracting roads using matlab software and CARTOMORPH software

Abstract

FCT/UNESP has been developing CARTOMORPH to be a public domain software which can be operated by users needing to extract and/or detect features from digital images. In this work, two methods were applied for the extraction and/or detection of the contours of the feature of interest (the highway) using a digital image containing part of a highway. One method was applied through the use of operators contained in the Mathematical Morphology toolbox, which is a private domain, SDC Information Systems, and the other was applied using the routine contained in the CARTOMORPH software. In the toolbox, the operators used were mmreadgray, responsible for opening the original image, mmhisteq, which softens the image, mmneg which can reverse the grayscale of pixels, and mmareaclose, which aims to remove image segmentation. This set of operators has resulted in a routine capable of extracting and/or detecting the contour of a road. The Blur and Minimum (Gblur) operator was used in the process using the CARTOMORPH software. This can detect the edges of objects present in the original blurred image, and transform them into an ideal edge ramp. Results from both methods were compared and the conclusion is that the blur and minimum (GBlur) operator gave a better performance. This finding indicates that the set of operators implemented in CARTOMORPH will be able to be operated by users in the field of cartography and related fields, thus enabling the use of a public domain software with efficient results.