Image Processing Toolbox

imclose

Close an image

Syntax

• IM2 = imclose(IM,SE)
  IM2 = imclose(IM,NHOOD)
  

Description

IM2 = imclose(IM,SE) performs morphological closing on the grayscale or binary image IM, returning the closed image, IM2. The structuring element, SE, must be a single structuring element object, as opposed to an array of objects.

IM2 = imclose(IM,NHOOD) performs closing with the structuring element strel(NHOOD), where NHOOD is an array of 0's and 1's that specifies the structuring element neighborhood.

Class Support

IM can be any numeric or logical class and any dimension, and must be nonsparse. If IM is logical, then SE must be flat. IM2 has the same class as IM.

Example

This examples closes an image to merge together the small features in the image that are close together. The example then opens the image to remove the isolated white pixels.

1. Read the image into the MATLAB workspace and threshold it.

• I = imread('pearlite.tif');
  bw = ~im2bw(I,graythresh(I));
  figure, imshow(bw), title('Step 1: threshold')
  
  
  

2. Close the image with a a disk-shaped structuring element.

• se = strel('disk',6);
  bw2 = imclose(bw,se);
  figure, imshow(bw2), title('Step 2: closing')
  
  
  

3. Open the image with the same structuring element.

• bw3 = imopen(bw2,se);
  figure, imshow(bw3), title('Step 3: opening')
  
  
  

See Also

imopen, imdilate, imerode, strel

imclearborder

imcomplement