3D image topological structuring with an oriented boundary graph for split and merge segmentation

In this paper, we present a new representation model for the topology and the geometry of a 3D segmented image. This model has been designed to provide main features and operations required by a 3D image segmentation library. It is mainly devoted to region based segmentation methods such as split and merge algorithms but is also convenient for contour based approaches. The model has been fully implemented and tested both on synthetic and real 3D images.