Artifacts of Quantization in Distance Transforms

Abstract: Distance transforms are a central tool in shape analysis, morphometry, and curve evolution problems. This work describes and investigates an artifact present in distance maps computed from sampled signals. Namely, sampling reflects through the distance transform causing quantization in the resulting distance map. Gradients of the quantized distance map show banding, affecting the quality of subsequence processing. Furthermore, this error is independent of the sampling period of the signal and cannot be removed by modifying the number of samples across an objects width. Where needed, distance maps should be computed from representations other than binary images. In the case where exact representations are needed, a dithering and noise removal algorithm is proposed.